


Maelstrom

by chrissie0707



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Brother Feels, Brotherly Love, Dean's Birthday, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Dean, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-18 22:19:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 57,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7332958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrissie0707/pseuds/chrissie0707
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam stares at what he hadn't been able to clean with wipes from the kit. Faintly stained in the swirls on the pads of his fingers, caked in his nailbeds. Dean's blood on his hands. A visual reminder of what he'd already known, and FELT, to be true. Spoilers through S3. Whump, banter, excessive feels, and all sorts of bad language.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 2015 National Novel Writing Month, and built from a list of prompts that will be posted at the conclusion of the story. Set between "A Very Supernatural Christmas" and "Malleus Maleficarum." This story doesn't contain nearly as much dialogue or action as is usually seen in one of my stories, as this became very much about character exploration as the boys draw closer to Dean's deal coming due.

_January 24, 2008_

The one – _and goddamn ONLY_ , he supplements with a curled lip – thing Sam's got going for him right now is that Dean's pretty sure the big oaf didn't mean to knock him out. What he's been able to glean from his brother over the past few days has been comparable to raw data, and he's not entirely positive of the intention behind that last hit, but he's pretty sure Sam wasn't trying to turn the lights out. Or maybe he's just hoping that was the case. Hurt like hell, either way.

Dean's got a hard head and he knows he's no one to be throwing rocks from a glass house at the moment, but Sammy hasn't been thinkin' straight since they arrived at the hotel, and he certainly wasn't looking to be gentle. Little brother's got fucking _tree trunks_ for arms and there was a feral, unplanned and uncontrolled desperation in the attack that put him here.

He's not lookin' to make excuses or anything, but he'd taken a couple of hits already, and a couple of knuckles belted with that kind of force across the soft, fleshy part of the temple and a man _twice_ his size would have gone down just as easy. The kid got in one good swipe, and at a bad angle, to boot.

Yeah. That's what's got Dean in this paddleless shit creek of a situation. Geometry.

 _Get it together, Winchester,_ Dean berates himself. He hasn't tried to move much yet, because his tired body is kinda liking this whole not-being-vertical thing, limbs feeling wooden and heavy and impossible to shift if he tried. He settles for squinting, for now, and allows his stubborn eyes to adjust to the dim, blurry room around him. Maybe a room, maybe not, maybe a… _s'that tile?_ Tile covered in equal parts grime and bright blue graffiti.

 _Goddamnit._

He's in the pool. Sammy put him in the fucking pool. Or, what used to be the pool and is now a giant filthy pit in what a small brass plaque announced as the Natatorium. The deep end, too, Dean guesses, breath fogging in front of his frozen face as he leans his head back in an effort to determine how high the slime-coated tiling stretches. _DEEP END_ , the black-on-white tiles scream redundantly from above his head.

The air is frigid, and littered with swirling particles of dust that are visible in the beams of moonlight bouncing from fresh snowbanks outside and filtering through the paint-covered windowpanes. Washes of dim orange and yellow light reflect off of the tiles, and spotty shadows drop from the ceiling as the snow continues to fall outside the building. It kind of feels like he woke up in the last act of a goddamn horror movie.

And maybe Dean's not thinking all that straight, either. It wasn't exactly sleep, and it was pretty damn far from being rest, but the amount of time he's spent unconscious has all the same managed to put a miniscule dent in the fug that's enveloped his own confused and restless brain the past couple of days. Turns out, it's exhaustive work, intuiting every damn emotion that passes through your Sasquatch brother's giant head. Turns out, sleep tends to elude you when you're struggling to isolate what feelings are truly _yours_ , and what you're somehow sensing from a big, sulky asshat who spits out moods like an ATM ejects bills.

Dean's still a big brother before anything else, before _utterly screwed_ , before _inevitably Hellbound_ , and he hopes Sam didn't pick up on that bit of resentment that he's just allowed to slip out, wherever the kid may be. He swallows against the nausea that's suddenly joined the party that his pounding, rung skull has had raging like unchaperoned teenagers since he came to a few minutes ago. He squeezes his eyes shut and presses his lips together, drawing slow, deliberate inhalations through his nose, steadying the turbulence inside and giving his dark surroundings a moment to politely cease their incessant spinning. Last thing he needs is to start puking on himself.

His stomach mercifully settles and Dean next forces aside the demanding, steady thrumof pulsing pain in the side of his probably bleeding head and parts his lips to suck in a single long breath, attempting to allow a fresh flush of oxygen to kick start his brain into putting together some sort of plan or exit strategy here. The air that hits the back of his throat is like ice, causing him to cough, and that's when he realizes he's shivering.

Because, _fuck_ , if it isn't cold as balls in here. There's something impressive to be discerned from Sam's plan, Dean figures, if he really _tries_ to find it. The Natatorium is at the other end of the main building of the hotel, about as far from the lobby they've been squatting and hunting in as you can get without actually being outside. So he also maybe owes the kid a thanks for deeming this far enough to be FAR ENOUGH and not dragging him out to bury in a snowdrift. He's not gonna make his little brother bury him more than the once. Metaphorically speaking, of course, because he's pretty sure he remembers a blurry and heavily beer-laden conversation regarding _that_ having already taken place.

 _Don't think about that now, asshole._ That's not something Dean needs rattling around in Sam's head. Wherever he is, Dean can tell his brother is panicked and scared and…remorseful? _Good._ Anyway, the last thing he needs to round out this clusterfuck is the impression that Dean is sitting here feeling sorry for himself and thinking about dying. Not today.

Another deep, steadying inhale also reveals the presence of an uncomfortable band of pressure across his chest, and Dean drops his head to stare dumbly at the coil of rope there. He hasn't exactly tried to stand or anything, but he still isn't _quite_ sure how he hadn't yet noticed he's tied to – _come ON, Sammy_ – one of the grimy deck chairs he'd seen discarded here at the bottom of the shallow end on their initial sweep of the grounds. And now, he figures, it's well-past time he took full stock of this situation he's in here. The twisted rope is that nauseating shade of amber that means it was probably once white, and while Dean would like very much to not think about what substances have discolored the nylon so, he can fairly easily deduce that his restraint was probably once a lane marker. Considering he's in the pool and all.

 _All right. So far we've got head injury, cold, and tied up. I'll take Pretty Well Screwed for four hundred, Alex_. And that's not even taking into account the pitiful fact he has no idea where Sam is, or what condition _he_ might be in. Probably not great.

Probably freaking out – and there's really no _probably_ needed there. Sam's for sure freaking out; Dean can feel it, in the tickle of sweat breaking out at his hairline and the quickening of his own pulse.

He really gives moving a try for the first time, wriggles his numb ass against the frozen plastic bands of the chair. With a scrape of rusted metal and without much ceremony, Dean ends up tipping himself right over onto the ice-slicked tiles beneath. Instinct and reflex order his arms to soften the impact, but they're unresponsive, the lazy bitches, and further restrained somewhere behind him. His cheek bounces off of the hard ground as the chair follows his trajectory and lands partly on top of him with a thud and a clatter.

Thinking first, _smooth_ , and then, _OW_ , Dean sends his tongue scouting for loose teeth while he tries to get his sore as shit arms to do anything. And he'd really settle for _anything_ at this point. He gets a bit of feeling back in the form of pins and needles but the limbs seem to be stubbornly set on this whole not budging thing, and there's a familiar pinch to accompany the icy sensation locked around his wrists. He squints as he rotates cold hands, lightbulb clicking on. _Because the rope and the fact you knocked me the fuck out wasn't enough, Sammy…_ Nope, Sam's got him cuffed to the sides of the chair, too.

As soon as they're both a little less crazy and connected in the heads, and maybe after Dean manages some sleep not given the assist by his brother punching his head into a wall, _oh_ , Sam's gonna be doing dinner runs and laundry duty for a damn long time. For _weeks_. Maybe until the Hellhounds come home.

Dean attempts to flip the lounging beach chair back into its rightful, upright position – and maybe get his face off of the floor before he gets stuck this way – but to no avail. Without his hands he can't find the necessary leverage, so he finds the least agonizing twist on his arms and pulls his cheek cautiously from the floor without leaving any skin behind on the tile – he's pretty sure – and tilts his aching head up to stare uselessly and furiously at the ceiling.

There's a steady drip of water _splatting_ into a puddle somewhere behind Dean's left ear, from a damaged and leaky pipe. He listens to the _splat-splat_ for a moment, taking some momentary comfort in the fact it doesn't seem to actually be _freezing_ , before rolling his eyes and laying his head back against the grody bottom of the pool.

_Splat._

_Splat._

_And now I have to piss. Awesome._

Dean opens his mouth to shout for his idiot brother but catches himself before he looses so much as a pathetic squeak. There _is_ still the matter of the malevolent spirit haunting this massive hotel, and he's pretty much a sitting duck at the moment. But there's also Bobby somewhere in the building, and he's no doubt wondering where the hell Dean's gone off to. There's _also_ the blizzard outside the hotel, showing no signs of slowing down and the very real threat of hypothermia if he can't get his ass off of these chilly tiles.

 _One problem at a time, dude,_ Dean tells himself, teeth chattering. And that's good, he remembers. Chattering teeth is good. Shivering is good. It's when the shivering stops that you're in trouble. If the drippy pipe stops _splat-spatting_ , that's when he's in trouble. If Sammy's still completely off his rocker and decides he was trying to knock Dean the fuck out, that's trouble.

Dean's ears strain to catch the sound of the water as he throws another mostly numb and incredibly half-assed attempt at dislodging the rope securing his upper arms. With a snort that might graze the very, _very_ edge of impressed, he finds no give in the bindings. _Nice job, Sam._ All those years spent spitting in the face of John Winchester's approval, the son of a bitch sure would have made the old man grinning ear to ear with these knots he's used to truss up his brother.

And it's all for naught, because whatever Sam's Hail Mary heave of a plan might have been here, it doesn't seem to have worked. Wherever he may be in the sprawling, still-haunted resort, Dean can sense his brother's panic and desperation just as when they were standing shoulder-to-shoulder. And above all else, his stalwart anger, a seemingly ever-present fixture, somehow inexplicably kept separate in Dean's mind from his own unease and pain, but sending his pulse jumping violently all the same.

Something's gonna die. Whatever it is that caused this to happen, this Wonder Twin Mind Swap bullshit that's been screwing with them for days. Oh, Dean's gonna take _pieces_ out of someone.

As soon as he gets moving, that is.

_Let's go down the list here, one more time. Alone, knocked in the head, cuffed to a chair, and freezing. You get all that, Sammy?_

"Well," Dean mutters aloud against a soundtrack of his own relentlessly chattering teeth, the dripping pipes, the creaking, shifting beams overhead and the swirling, howling winds of the raging snowstorm outside. His voice echoes and carries in the pit, the sound of it coming back to his ears deep and not a little hopeless. "Happy birthday to me."

**************************************************************************

_Three days earlier_

Sam would really, _really_ appreciate it if his brother would stop distracting spirits and monsters by allowing them to beat him about the head and back with floors and walls and the like. It would go far in bringing a little sunshine back into his life if Dean would stop volunteering to be the party piñata. But if he's taking a hit meant for Sam, or one that could in any way miss its intended target and end up even remotely in the _vicinity_ of Sam, then Dean makes that executive decision to step into the line of fire, considers the play well-called and the day well-lived.

And that right _there_ is pretty much the reason they're in this entire mess. Or, the general mess of the clock looming over their heads, steadily ticking down, anyway.

This specific mess, the one with the Rawhead in the basement in Kettering, Ohio…this mess is just because Dean can't seem to stop hunting. Hunting with a violent, single-minded focus that reminds Sam too much of Dad in every way that twists his stomach into familiar and painful knots. Whether to pass the time that's already passing much too quickly, that hourglass pouring a stream of sand that Sam is powerless to stop, or simply to distract his little brother from valiantly digging into whatever lore or resource he can get his hands on to find some way to get Dean out of this deal. To distract Sam from – _God forbid_ – engaging in some kind of serious and meaningful conversation in what is looking to be their last days together. Or maybe it's simply to distract himself, to keep it from being _real_. A sort of out of sight, out of mind attitude regarding the approaching Hellhounds.

Whatever Dean's intention, they haven't really had a day off from hunting since Christmas. Since Dean let his guard down and really, finally acknowledged that his given time was winding down, making it all the more real and horrible for _Sam_. Sam's lived his whole life taking his cues from his big brother, and until Dean blinks, the danger isn't real. Something about Christmas night made the danger real for Sam.

And Dean knew it, too. Woke the next morning with a drawn, dark look about him, like he'd completely shut it down. Which, it turns out, is exactly what he did. That dark look hasn't gone away, and they haven't had another moment like that in damn near a month now. Dean won't allow it. He doesn't want to talk, or share, or entertain any type of notion that he isn't mere months, _weeks_ , away from hitting the wall and the wall hitting back. He just wants to leave one more bloody, violent mark on the world before he leaves it. He wants to hunt, which is somehow less dangerous than just _talking_ , in the idiot's mind.

It's mostly hauntings Dean's been sniffing out, quick in-and-out jobs all across the country; a few spooks lingering in barns in the shorn cornfields of Midwest or glittery high-rises in the cities, and one particularly nasty poltergeist that had been interested in using their bodies for a little unscheduled demolition for the offended homeowners, who'd been willing to pay for the pest removal until seeing the state of their home after. A nest of vamps in Denver, a lone werewolf in Boise and a handful of demons making all sorts of noise across the Plains, feisty ones who'd wrestled their way repressed and antsy out of the pit through the Devil's Gates.

Despite the fact they've both been more or less _dead_ somewhat recently – Sam more and Dean only slightly less – they still have some advantage of youth on their side, and Dean's rarely required more than two hours of sleep and the biggest coffee he can find to get the day started anew. But without taking the breaks they need to recover, even bruises are beginning to take a toll, and every job leaves them sore and weary and just a step slower than the last job. From the time Dean threw the Impala into 'park' and made his way up to the house with raccoon eyes and just enough of a limp to notice, Sam had his fair share of doubts that his brother was going have enough left in the tank to provide the distraction necessary to take this creature down. Despite his seemingly endless supply of swagger and jokes to the contrary, he's still just as human as the rest of them.

The Rawhead's big and strong and fast, but that's nothing they didn't know going in. They've done this before, and that's exactly why Dean had gotten it into his head that he needed to run interference when they got inside, draw it out into the open and get Sam a good shot. Gotten it into his head that he's expendable, when he's anything but. When in actuality, Sam doesn't know what the hell he's going to be expected to do without his big brother behind the wheel or watching his six, and his big brother doesn't seem to care. Despite knowing exactly what he was saddling Sam with, from first-hand experience that will earn Sam a fist in the eye to bring up, Dean didn't give the deal a second thought. Because Dean is the definition of impulsive, and _consequence_ isn't a word that's in his vocabulary.

Dean is all about instant gratification, and that applies very much to this deal he's made. Sam's alive, and that makes Dean happy. To hell with anything else.

Literally.

Sam feels guilt over being so mad at his brother, sure, an oppressing, suffocating smash of it, but that doesn't make the anger go away. Not entirely.

Dean's pretty damn quick but he's missing that last step, the one that gives him his _oomph_ , and the Rawhead gets him around the neck in near-record time. It's got an arm like a major league starting pitcher, and Dean flies through the air at a remarkable speed, hits the cement slab with an impressive _thwack-crack_ of spine and skull and crumbles at the base of the wall into a groaning pile of loose, sluggish limbs.

 _Son of a bitch_ , Sam curses silently from the shadows. Thing's out in the open, just as planned, and as he finally has a clear shot to take, he doesn't quite know whether his thought is directed at the monster or his mostly unconscious and constantly, needlessly self-sacrificing brother.

He watches with a mere moment's satisfaction as the Rawhead goes down in a brilliant spark of electricity that illuminates every dark corner of the basement, then hastily stuffs the spent taser into the back pocket of his jeans. Dean's let countless broken fingers and severe-enough lacerations go unattended, but God forbid they leave a weapon behind. Because he has Dad's prioritization skills drilled into his thick skull, and hasn't had enough time on his own as a man to recalibrate such idiotic notions.

And he isn't going to get that time.

Sam forces the thought away and swallows with some degree of difficulty. He crosses the drippy cellar to where the fallen Dean is struggling to find his sea legs and stoops to grip the martyr under the arm, hauling him forcefully but carefully vertical. Well, just about vertical. "Up and at 'em, Shmucky McBait," he encourages, mildly concerned but with the expected amount of sibling bite.

Dean squints at him as he staggers upright and leans on a hand flattened against the damp concrete wall. His face looks gray and his eyes are bright, not entirely focused. "Huh?"

 _When is one hit gonna be one hit too many?_ Sam had hoped to never find out. "Nothing," Sam says with a sigh. His own eyes go to work roaming in a quick evaluation, checking for visible injuries. Of course, with Dean, it's always what you can't see that becomes the problem. "You good?"

"Mmmm. Fantastic." But Dean's forehead dips to join his palm against the wall, in obvious juxtaposition to his bullshit-laden words.

Sam identifies sweat and dirt but nothing that appears to be blood on Dean's face or in his hair, but he's sure there's a nasty bump to be found if he really pushes the issue like he should. But Winchesters aren't traditionally known for doing what they should. He nods, but doesn't yet release the hold he has on his brother's jacket sleeve. "Do I need to make you walk a straight line or anything?" _Give me something, Dean. Be HUMAN, just for one damn minute._

Dean rolls his head slowly against the wall and shoves off with a groan and an eye roll that doesn't appear to feel like the great idea he'd thought it would be. He presses the heel of his hand to his forehead and, under his own ebbing steam, weaves a preeetty straight line for the stairs.

Sam follows one step behind. There, as always, to catch him if he falls.

********************************************************************

They get into something of a heated argument back at the car, or a tepid one, at least. In any case, Dean puts up a fight, and it feels good just to get him to exhibit any kind of emotion, even if it's nothing more than some tired attempt at annoyance, and even if it's part of a verbal contest Sam raised about something as benign as allowing Dean behind the wheel. Dean's stubborn as a mule on a good day, and he puts forth enough of a fight that they resort to Rock, Paper, Scissors to settle this, and Sam can only shake his head with affection, because it was _Dean's_ idea. But he finds himself hesitating before he shoots, and he ends up throwing paper. Because son of a _bitch_ if the guy doesn't deserve to put something in the win column.

It's kind of sad, the little things that bring _this_ smile to the jackass's face. He chomps at Sam's flattened palm with his index and middle fingers and smirks like he just collected the winnings on a 10-1 bet from a busty Vegas casino cashier. If he hadn't been so recently dented in the skull, it'd have been obvious Sam threw this one to him, but as it is, Dean drops slowly and stiffly behind the wheel, his crossroads deal and these newest bruises riding bitch between them.

They don't drive for long, which might actually be a contender for Understatement of the Century. Sam stays silent but raises his eyebrows at his brother as they rumble away from the interstate before even really clearing the city limits, pulling into the lot of a fill-up joint on the corner of a sparsely populated exit ramp.

"My baby needs gassed up," Dean explains flatly as he pulls the Impala to a stop at one of the pumps, lest Sam think he might just need to take a break or, God forbid, relinquish driving detail for the next hundred or so miles, realizing just how much concentration and hand-eye coordination is required to maneuver a vehicle with such a horrible turning radius.

 _Yeah, and so do you_. But Sam bites his tongue and keeps his commentary to himself, because Dean's made it perfectly clear over the past several months that as long as he's around, he'll be making the decisions, be it where they eat or when they sleep or what they kill or when they stop. Who lives, and who dies.

Dean pushes the door open with its usual unoiled _creak_ but is slow to extricate himself from the car, seemingly giving in to his stiff muscles and otherwise weary body as he lays his head back against the seat instead.

"Dean," Sam prods gently.

"Yup." Dean's eyes fly open as he grips the handle of the door. He heaves himself out onto the cracked pavement of the gas station's lot with a grunt of general discomfort, muttering an additional curse as his boot lands in a puddle of equal parts rainwater and oil.

They live a life that's kept mostly to shadows that soften, hide, and conceal, and when Dean passes under the harsh, unforgiving glare of florescent soffit lighting on his way into the convenience mart, and in contrast to the inky blackness of the dead of night that surrounds them, Sam is taken aback by the sight of his brother's pale and battered face.

It's been painfully obviously that Dean's been throwing himself into each job like he's looking to make it his last, like he'll be damned before he gives those Hellhounds the satisfaction, and Sam knows he shouldn't be shocked by the sight of damage piling on. The bright and buzzy lighting surely isn't doing Dean any favors, the extensive layering of scrapes and marks on his cheekbones and jawline are exacerbated by the stark illumination. But they've been there, stacking and spreading and changing colors for weeks, and Sam tries to bring forth an image of Dean grinning, carefree and unmarred, and realizes in the moment that he's maybe managed to forget what his brother's face looks like _without_ bruises.

The bruises don't seem to hold much weight on his personality, as Dean pauses on the threshold, holding open the stainless steel-framed door to the mart. He purses his lips and summons Sam with a sharp whistle. "Anytime you're ready, Cupcake."

Sam throws open his own door, and hates how easily he smiles at the crack from his brother.

Once inside the otherwise empty gas station, there's evidence to be found that they might actually, mercifully be nesting in town for a few days, or at least one night, as Dean detours from the counter and snakes his way slowly through the aisles, gathering an assortment of items into his arms in the way of Winchester grocery shopping. Sports drinks, chips, two six-packs of whatever beer was behind the first cooler door he happened to pull open. They each have their preferences for taste, but it usually comes down to whatever gets the job done. Especially these days. It's been damn near impossible for Sam to have missed the way Dean needs a little alcoholic assistance in getting anything resembling sleep at night.

He leans an elbow on the counter and waits as Dean lastly drags a pair of plastic quarts of motor oil from a nearby rack. _Fuel for me and fuel for my baby._ Sam frowns. "Dean, I'm pretty sure I saw some oil in the trunk."

Dean shakes his head as he approaches with loaded arms, wincing a bit. "No, I'm out."

"No, there was a bottle of motor oil back there."

Dean drops his load to clatter across the cracked plastic counter mat, drawing a curled lip from the skinny clerk. It might actually be the state of his face more than it is his lack of manners. In any case, he pays the guy no mind, turning his attention to Sam. "First of all, seriously, dude, it hurts my own manhood to hear you say 'bottle of motor oil.'"

"Quart," Sam allows with a sigh, not that he feels a need to prove himself.

Dean rolls his eyes at the clerk in some show of unreturned solidarity, tugging his wallet free of his back pocket. "And forty on pump seven."

"Seven's out of order," the attendant replies, sounding over-proportionately bored. "There's a sign."

"Whatever," Dean sighs, shooting a glance out the window at where the Impala waits for them. "Eight, then. Eight workin'?"

"Yeah."

"Yahtzee." Looking at least as tired as he sounds, Dean slaps a handful of wrinkled bills onto the counter.

Sam's phone rings as Dean's replacing the gas nozzle, and he feels a conflict of emotions when he sees it's Bobby calling. As great as it is to hear from the man, especially during these really rough days, he's usually calling about a job, because he doesn't seem to know any better than Sam how not to give Dean whatever he wants right now.

Dean's got a sickeningly accurate sense about these things, and he perks up as he swipes his hands along his jeans and drags the driver's side door open once more. "S'that Bobby?"

"Yeah." Which means Sam's going to have to put this call on speakerphone. Which means if Bobby _is_ calling about job, there'll be no getting out of it, because Dean won't say no. He drops onto the bench and hits all of the obligatory buttons, holding the cell aloft between them. "Hey, Bobby."

"Sam."

It's a simple greeting, but there are more figurative volumes in that single word than there are actual tomes in Bobby's home. And that's saying something. _Are you okay? Is your brother there? Is he okay? Can that jackass hear me? Do you need me there?_

"How's it goin'?" Sam asks lamely, answering every question in tone and inflection, even if he doesn't do so with his words.

_"You know me. Always manage to find ways to keep busy. Where you boys at?"_

"Um…" Dean yanks the receipt for the snacks, oil, and gas from Sam's hand. He leans into the light, cramming his shoulders against the window of the door, and squints at the tiny print on the small slip of paper. "Kettering, Ohio. Wherever that is."

"How do you not know where we are?" Sam shakes his head incredulously. "You drove us here."

_"That's close enough. When you two're done squawkin', you think you can meet me in Liberty, New York?"_

"What's in Liberty, New York?" Dean asks, like that matters. He's already got the keys in a tight grip, inching toward the ignition.

_"A job, and an old man askin' for a hand with it. That enough for you?"_

Dean recoils from Bobby's tone, that familiar bark, a patented mix of snark and affection. Or maybe Dean just has that effect on most people. "We can be there in…"

Sam watches with a small hint of near-forgotten amusement as his brother digs into his internal atlas and struggles to figure the mileage between here and Liberty from memory.

"Wait, gimme a reference point," Dean says finally, conceding defeat and digging fingertips into his forehead, against the headache his attempt at mental math has surely ratcheted up. There's a smear there below his hairline, from where he'd leaned his head against the basement wall, making the pallor of the skin around the mark glow all the more ghostly.

Dean literally needs another hunt right now like he needs a hole in the head. "We can be there by tomorrow night, Bobby," Sam offers, hoping the older hunter takes the hint.

He does, because the two of them are both merely _existing_ in this same time zone, Dean Hell Time, and Bobby knows he's co-piloting here. He might give Dean whatever the asshole wants, but he'll still do it on Sam's terms. _"Good enough for me."_

 _Good man, Bobby._ Sam nods to himself. "All right, see you then."

Dean is staring at him long after the phone _beeps_ and signals the call has been disconnected.

"What?" Sam asks, feigning poor ignorance. "You really gonna tell me that you'd rather drive through the night than sleep in a bed?"

"I'm not sayin' that." Dean tears his eyes away, twisting the key in the ignition. "You gonna start ordering for me, too? Cuttin' up my food so I don't choke?"

Sam swallows, feeling all of the nervous, angry ticks of the muscles in his face. "Yeah," he answers honestly. "Yeah, if I have to."

******************************************************************

Dean's no lightweight, but then again, he hasn't really been looking to drink lightly. The amicable nights of two rounds of beers and darts in shady bars are so far behind them, Sam can hardly drum up the memory.

Sam had longed for a night to pull over and rest, a real bed instead of the stiff and cold backseat of the Impala, but not at this cost. He hasn't forcefully taken an unfinished drink from his brother since they were much, much younger though Dean was somehow twice the idiot he is now, but his fingers are twitching in the direction of the piling bottles with varying levels of anxiety and responsibility as they stack up, as Dean grows slurrier and more glassy-eyed by the moment. By the moment and by the beer, and those have been taken down at such a speed it almost seems like this is what he wanted. Something to dull the razor's edge of the words dripping slowly from his tongue.

Inevitability isn't an idea the Winchesters tend to entertain, because there's always a move to be made. Or, at least there was for Sam. For Dad. But they're the ones who run when they need it, who escape when everything gets to be too damned much, and maybe their choices have always left Dean dealing with the inevitable. With the aftermath. And if this is what it feels like to be in that position, to have no control, to have to just… _sit here_ and let the hand play out…Sam doesn't know how Dean did it for all of those years. No question about it, he's the strongest of them.

On the table, the empty bottles frame an open, half-full and long-cold pizza box that signifies another colossal failure to share something resembling a normal meal. They're running out of opportunities to do so, but it seems that Dean didn't see much point in downing slices of carb-loaded cheesy and meaty goodness when he was looking to get drunk, to get _shit-faced_ ,and Sam lost his own appetite somewhere around the time his brother started talking about dying.

Dean's gone to a place in his head that's morbid as hell, and he'd resigned himself to the beer only because the gas station didn't stock anything stronger, because whiskey is the habit he'd picked up from Dad even after Dad was gone and is the warm milk that Dean now turns to, to get anything resembling sleep at night. But, as it turns out, he wasn't lookin' to sleep, either. Turns out that after nearly a month of bullshit he's finally, maybe regrettably, ready to try talking again.

And he's talking about dying. And maybe worse, about what Sam's supposed to do after.

"You're gonna hafta do it, Sammy," Dean says for maybe the fifth time, softly and deeply like a cat's purr. Stretching out the vowels and losing a few of the distinguishing consonants to the alcohol he's put down, as he stares at a candle burning in the window of a small home across the street.

They're too far away for the flame to actually be reflecting in his green, bright eyes, but Sam can see the distant fire there all the same. Can see the _thought_ the gruesome son of a bitch is thinking. He always sees the thought, always thinks it for himself, and he doesn't have much need for the words.

That night, in the farthest corner of Bobby's expansive property…Sam knew Dad was dead but all the same, he didn't really _know_ it until Dean had lit that first log. Knew it then because, after that, there's just no coming back. Not after the fire. That's why they have them. Things are gone after they burn. People are gone. Mom, Jess, and Dad.

Sam wants to scream out for the cruel happenstance of it all, as though this entire tableau of awfulness was brought about simply because some lazy asshole in Ohio couldn't be bothered to take their Christmas decorations down in a reasonable amount of time, and landed him in this inevitable and inescapable moment of time. He doesn't know what to say, doesn't have a clue how to derail this train, and he'll be damned if he allows himself to stand there in the middle of the tracks as it barrels towards him.

He doesn't do inevitable.

Dean doesn't seem to notice or care that Sam has yet to speak, or maybe he cares exactly as much to hear Sam's input as he ever has. If he'd asked for his little brother's opinion, his little brother would never had allowed him to put himself in this position. Would never have allowed Dean to put a value on his life and barter it away as something worth less than Sam's own.

Dean's fingers blindly grope the tabletop for liquid relief, for a fresh beer to soothe or silence the thoughts he won't dare give voice to. Comparatively, this is small ball, and Sam knows that. There're much, much worse things to come, for both of them. Things that are _inevitable_. This night might suck out loud, but with some graceful maneuvering, he can manage it.

"Dean." Sam finally reaches that place inside where he can no longer bite his tongue, and he chastises his brother quietly from the other side of the table. Chastises Dean for the drinking and the wanting more and for the words he's allowed to slip loose, though Sam knows he's about the last person on the planet to be critical of the man right now. For anything. Or maybe he's the only one who can do so.

"Gonna hafta…" Dean starts again, then swallows audibly over the lump in his throat as he flattens his palm against the surface of the table.

Sam feels the familiar fire of defiance rise up from his belly, bites down hard against the feeling and the words. _Not so easy to say it, huh, Dean?_

"S'the only way to be sure, Sammy," Dean drops, quieter now, but all the more heavy. "You know it is."

Sam hasn't yet put up any kind of argument, but Dean doesn't seem to need any opposition to justify the fight in his voice. The fight that's always in his voice. The fight that's always in _him_. But he's going to give in to the terms of this deal; that's the one thing he won't fight, and won't allow Sam to fight for him. Dean's slowly slumping over the table as his eyelids grow heavier, forearms sliding across the chipped laminate tabletop and nudging the pizza box, pushing a line of empty bottles precariously close to the edge. Inches away from leaving Sam another mess to clean up.

"Gonna hafta make sure…"

 _Make sure_ what, _Dean?_ It's the anger building again now, pure and steady and born from desperation and the hollow, ravenous ache inside Sam that misses his brother already, even when he's still sitting right across from him.

_Do it. Say it._

_Tell me to burn your body._

Just like Dad. Because that's the way they were taught. That's what they're supposed to do. To make sure he has no physical body on this earth to cling to. To make sure that he doesn't come back.

But Dean won't say it, and Sam would do _anything_ to stop this from coming to pass. He'd sell his own soul, would sign his name with gusto and in blood on the dotted line to keep his brother here.

It's something he keeps telling himself, but it's weaker a statement each time it's repeated, and is starting to feel more like wishful thinking or obligation than it does certainty of conviction. There's nothing he CAN do, no way to offer his own soul. No one would take it if he tried, and Dean hadn't left a loophole, hadn't given Sam a chance the same way he hadn't given him a choice.

Sam's had two beers, himself, and that's a nice start but it's not nearly enough to participate fully in such a conversation. Not nearly enough to dull the furious roar pounding in tandem behind his eyes and ribcage. There's still one bottle between them that's near-about half full, and he drags it away from its fallen comrades and into his own possession for a reason that's yet to be determined. Drink it himself or pour it down the drain. Give in, or put up a fight. Some days it's hard to tell which is which. Like if Dean dies, is that giving in, or is it fighting?

Dean makes a protesting noise as the glass base of the bottle scrapes noisily across the surface of the table. He hits a nasal note that's a little high for his own liking, between the copious amounts of alcohol and the wall that left that mark on his temple. He screws up his nose, dropping his head and grinding a few knuckles against the side of his sore head. Which all seems a little counterproductive to Sam, who still has yet to determine whether he wants to pat Dean on the shoulder or hit him over the head with the bottle clutched between his fingers.

"Can't just…" Dean finally goes on slowly, voice muffled by his hands but undeterred by the alcohol or the pounding headache, one or both of which has gone to serious work stealing his color and equilibrium as he begins to sway in his chair.

He's pale as virgin snow as he suddenly pushes himself upright from the table and stumbles a few steps into the cold glass of the picture window behind Sam. Sam twists in his chair and swallows as he watches his inebriated brother press his palms against the windowpane and take a deep breath. All points of contact on the glass bring a plume of fog spreading across the cool surface as he stares at that damned candle flame across the way. It's not even real; it's plastic, a lightbulb. Tacky decoration. "Can't just bury me, Sammy. S'not gonna be enough."

It's the closest he's come to actually saying what Sam already knew his brother was thinking, and he sucks in a breath that brings a sharp pain to his chest. He shakes his head, and scans the room, doing a quick inventory of what they've got left. Maybe no more than a single beer or two in the cooler because, as previously established, Dean is no lightweight. At this rate and without the assist, there won't be more than guilt to be found when Sam finally closes his eyes tonight. "I don't think you understand what you're asking of me, Dean."

The sound Dean makes might almost be a laugh, if he's still capable of such things. "I don't think I'm askin.'" Said like he honestly doesn't know how to distinguish a plea from a demand anymore, or how either one should sound slipping off the end of his tongue. He doesn't have plans or forethought, only reactions. Only instinct.

Sam frowns, or he thinks he does. At the very least, his face shifts into an expression that feels both saddened and disapproving, and either would work, given the circumstances. "Dean…"

Dean turns away from the window and faces Sam, sagging against the wall. There's nothing but stubbornness of will and muscle keeping him upright anymore, and it doesn't seem as though he'll be that way for much longer. It also seems like he's not yet said all he has to say, and Sam somehow both wants to hear it and yet wants to clamp his hand over his brother's mouth. This is a rare glimpse into the inner workings, but that hardly ever leads to something good.

"If it was anyone else," Dean says, words sliding out like soft butter melting on a cast iron skillet, "what would you do?" Asked with such complete clarity of thought and want of answer, it throws Sam for a loop.

"You're not – " Sam breaks off, sucks his bottom lip between his teeth and bites down hard. A small bit of warm blood wells in his mouth and for a long moment, the only sound in the motel room is the long, muted blare of a train's horn a few roads over, warning drivers to stay clear of the tracks. This time Sam ignores the warning, stepping forcefully into the path to be run down. "You're not anyone else, Dean."

Dean lifts a shoulder, won't seem to even consider the validity of Sam's words. "Gonna die just like anyone else." He levels a serious, stone-cold sober gaze. "Sammy, we knew this was comin.'"

And there it is, the inevitability. As though it's inevitable. Sam shakes his head, feels the itch his legs to get up and moving, to run away from this table and this conversation. "You're an asshole," he says, because any intelligent thought or intention is escaping him at the moment.

"No," Dean says with a long sigh, and the sober moment of clarity is gone as quickly as it had appeared. He melts against the pockmarked plaster, and Sam darts forward to intervene his sloppy descent to the dirty carpet. "I'm a big brother."

*****************************************************************

_To be continued..._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bringing the setting for the rest of the story into play in this chapter. While the place is real, I've taken some liberties throughout with regards to the building's layout, for my own nefarious purposes.

Sam makes it a point to run every morning, much to the chagrin of an older brother who feels the need to rib him incessantly about it while putting down a Halloween night-sized haul of candy and snack food, like it's a balanced breakfast.

"I'm still faster than you," Dean had argued the last time Sam mentioned his eating habits, mouth full of caramel and nougat. "But you keep practicin.'"

And it pisses Sam off – in the way of general fraternal annoyance rather than any form of deep-seeded fury – because the jerk's right. He _is_ still faster than Sam.

There's no use in pushing the mental health angle, which leaves Dean laughing so hard he's nearly got tears in his eyes.

"Yeah, Sam. You're the most mentally-balanced asshole I know." And then, once he'd wiped the tears away, once he was popping the top of his first beer of the day, still well before lunchtime, "Whew. Thanks, I needed that."

So it's become a solitary venture, and Sam is okay with that, as he takes this time every day to do one normal, benign and non-threatening thing for himself. It's about the only form of structured exercise he can manage these days, the only exercise at all to be found that doesn't involve killing. These thirty minutes each day belong to _him_ , and no one else. He is in complete control of himself, with no outside forces pressing down on that weight that's become a mainstay on his shoulders. That weight that feels like Dean, like Jess, like Dad. Like the whole damn world.

Thirty minutes in which decisions haven't been made for him and nothing is _inevitable_ , beyond the knowledge he'll eventually make a circuit back to the motel. Sometimes he's out longer than thirty minutes. Sometimes two hours have passed before he notices how far he's strayed, and Dean starts blowing up his phone, sounding frightened and panicked and pissed when Sam answers.

He'll always make his way back to the motel, and as Sam pulls himself out of bed this morning, that's about the extent of the kind of nailed-down future he feels up to handling right now.

It's not uncommon for Sam to get up and moving out the world that exists beyond the door of their flavor-of-the-week motel room before Dean's made that first pathetic – and usually unsuccessful – attempt to do so much as peel his eyes open. Between the two of them Sam's certainly the early bird, due to what once was trouble sleeping but has simply become habit. It might take him longer, but once Dean's up, he's _up_. Once he manages to drag himself from bed and get a good thirty to forty ounces of strong black coffee into his system, he's as chipper a guy as Dean can be expected to be. Some days it just takes a while for him to make that initial crawl off of the mattress, and he doesn't appreciate any help in getting there. It's been that way since they were kids.

Even taking all of this into account, Sam's doesn't remember it ever being quite _this_ hard for his brother to get going in the morning. Knowing Hell is waiting, well, it seems to pretty much be hell. Of course, Sam can only assume, because the son of bitch will pry pry pry if Sam so much as blinks too hard or sighs too long, but when it's for the sake of himself, Dean locks it up and throws away the key. Puts a drink in his hand instead and, if he has it to spare, one in Sam's, in the hopes that, if he can't forget what's coming, maybe little brother will.

Neither of them ever does.

The room remains littered with last night's evidence of this. The empty bottles and the now seriously rank-smelling pizza box. That was more or less to be expected, as there's no fridge, and Sam should have taken care of that. Surveying the room, he thinks back on the conversation that was had and feels a pang of…something. Something not easily identifiable, but falling somewhere between the much-visited territories of guilt and disappointment, though certainly not out of the realm of anger.

There's no _one_ thing to be feeling here, and Sam certainly didn't do either of them any favors by leaving the room in this state. He should have cleaned up before crawling into bed, himself, not only because now he's forced to look it in the face and rehash what was said while dinner was going to untouched ruin on the table between them, but because he knows his brother, and Dean's going to want to pretend that _nothing_ happened and that nothing was said. Sam can at least be doing these little things to make his brother's remaining days easier.

Or maybe Dean _should_ see the mess. Maybe he _should_ have to look his issues and behavior in the face just the same as Sam has had to, and make an informed decision about where to go from here. Because it shouldn't be so easy for Dean to leave Sam cleaning up his mess, both literal and figurative. He's never been the one that needed tending to. If it truly has become so easy to push that emotional broom into his brother's hand, then that's a different problem altogether, and a pattern Sam would like to break away from.

He decides to leave it to fate, if there is such a thing, and ignores the clutter for now. Sam tucks his iPod into a pocket, loops his earbuds around his neck and moves with a fair amount of stealth through the motel room, wary of inadvertently waking Dean, who still sleeps with that big-ass knife tucked under his flat pillow and hasn't ever taken well to being inadvertently woken. A lesson learned young and hard and immediately: you let Dean wake up on his own, because he's inherently and excessively aggressive when startled – even when hungover – and he's wicked fast with that blade.

Sam pauses on the threshold, face painfully obviously screwed up in guilt dressed as concern, and studies the way Dean is twisted up in his covers. Cocooned not solely for protection from the chill of the night but rolled up tight like a burrito, and you only get that way from continuous thrashing. From struggling through nightmares. Sam knows better than maybe anyone.

Like he knows Sam watching him, Dean swallows and groans and jerks roughly in his sleep, wrapping the musty quilted duvet even tighter around himself.

Sam feels as though he's breaking some unspoken agreement of trust by staring this way, and ducks through the fire-engine red door of the room and into the nip of an early Midwestern winter morning. It's just after dawn, and the cold air hits his exposed skin in an immediate and aggressive fashion. As he pulls the door shut behind him, he sees that tacky plastic candle still glowing in the window across the street, and the sight of it is much like a fresh stab at his very soul.

_"Can't just bury me, Sammy. S'not gonna be enough."_

_That selfish son of a bitch_. Like the thought is some foreign object blown by the wind into his head, Sam is quick to drag the hood of his gray sweatshirt up over his neck and ears, blocking the bash of it from biting his ears and cheeks and obscuring the dim light across the way from his view. He just wants to take off, to get away, and forgoes the idea of music for the time being. He turns toward town and sets off down the cracked blacktop of another unfamiliar road.

Sometimes when he goes on these runs, he keeps pace with the drumbeat of songs thumping away his thoughts. Random tunes he'd caught flipping through small town radio stations that appealed at the time, mostly because they annoyed his brother. It's not quite Dean's preferred classic rock – _DAD'S classic rock_ – but all the same, appreciation of music is something they've always had in common. Sometimes Sam runs to a simpler, homemade soundtrack of labored breathing and soles slapping pavement as he pushes his limits for no other reason than because he can.

It might go without saying, but Sam's always enjoyed as much independence as he can finagle from each day. They keep extremely close quarters, and he loves his brother and owes him a _lot_ , but Dean is always _there_. There's something liberating about having this time for himself, and even more so about never having the opportunity to run the same route twice. It might be a stretch to call that a silver lining in their way of life, but there aren't many perks to be found these days. Not when your brother is on the backend of a year-long deadline.

At _that_ thought, that recurring one he can't ever seem to sidetrack before it takes over his mind and destroys him bit by bit from the inside out, Sam decides that maybe he shouldn't have been so hasty to give up on the music. He picks up the pace and pushes himself faster and further, until the stitch in his side and the dull roar in his calves occupy any available mental real estate previously occupied by morbid thought. He cuts a path through the small town based solely on instinct, keeping his eyes down, tracking cracks in the road.

Dean has yet to wake and is oddly still when Sam unlocks the door and reenters the motel room, but there is still the evidence that the sleep he's gotten has been anything but restful. More nightmares. Like Sam, he's always had them. He's just typically quieter about it.

His icy cheeks tingling from the relative furnace blast of warmth inside, Sam stuffs his cold hands into the depths of his sweatshirt pockets and tears his eyes away from Dean, grants them instead another long, slow circuit of the state of the room. That pizza box, _God_ , but it stinks, and the line of dead soldiers along the edge of the table, rings of condensation all across the flat surface where the bottles were left in sweating clusters. He swallows the difficult pill that is the confirmation of his brother's inner struggle. The turmoil Dean's clearly experiencing but would rather put alcohol to than words. Maybe Sam should be able to understand that, how the words can sometimes hurt worse.

He can understand, sure, if he's looking to, but all the same, a familiar anger begins to build in Sam's gut. Like an old friend, it's come and gone a dozen times over since finding out about the crossroads deal. Anger first over such a decision being made for him, such a trade regarding life and soul being made without his input or consent. Anger more recently over being left out, or more accurately _pushed_ out, of what Dean's going through when he's supposed to be the only thing Dean's got that matters.

The reconnection with his anger has Sam wanting to ignore the mess he's already resigned himself to clean. He has an urge to just kick the edge of the asshole's bed instead, jostle the mattress and get this day rolling. Get this hangover started. But he slams a lid down on that always-boiling pot inside, brings it forcibly back to a manageable simmer and, with nostrils still flaring, moves swiftly and silently around the room collecting the trash and bottles, and ties it all up in the liner from the can by the door. The pizza box has left a circular smear of sweaty grease on the table but Sam ignores it. He opens the door long enough to lay the bag on the narrow porch outside and heads back across the room to shut himself safely in the bathroom before he shakes his brother awake and starts a fight.

Since Dad died, Sam's been finding himself itching more and more to pick fights with Dean, like he doesn't quite know how else to communicate, or maybe just like his brother's the next best thing. He's no idiot, and self-aware enough to acknowledge the similarities between himself and his father, those traits he'd abhorred as an adolescent yet can't seem to combat emerging in his own patterns of behavior. Namely, this need to argue. The stubbornness and fury, and an obsessive drive for revenge. All are roaring in tandem through these not-long-enough days as he's apparently expected to simply sit by and watch Dean die for him.

A lot has transpired in the months since, but it wasn't really all that long ago Dean had finally cracked in Connecticut and said what Dad had put on him was crap. He probably only said it because Sam was drunk and not supposed to remember what he'd let slip. What Dad had done, bringing him back to life, and what he had left Dean to deal with after. A cryptic message regarding Sam and his tracks not at all covered, not when his boys were hunters. The all of it had nearly killed him anyway, and then Dean had gone and done the same damn thing without any hesitation or thought of what Sam would want, leaving his brother to a solitary future covered in blood.

As much and as often as he's forced to think about it, he's having a damn hard time keeping that boiling pot of anger covered.

Sam strips the sweatshirt and tee from over his head, and as always, he looks. He has to. He turns his gaze to the mirror and the sight of the long-healed wound along his spine in the mirror holds his eye, and he studies the mark. That spot there where he has a scar, just like Dean has a scar. Thick and deep and purple, it states in no uncertain terms, _this is the blow that killed me_. And for Dean, it's that faintly discolored line splitting his forehead and announcing his fragility. Together, they're a pair of warnings, reminders that there are some hits you're not meant to get up from.

But Winchesters always get up. They always find a way, because nothing is inevitable.

_Not unless your big brother is so much an asshole who doesn't want to be saved that he goes and makes it impossible to save him._

Sam reaches behind the smudgy plastic shower curtain, lip curling at the sight of black mold spotting the edges of the liner, and turns on the water. The spray starts with a groan of rusty pipe, then spits with enough force to probably cut glass. Steam begins to rise and fill the tiny bathroom, fogging over the small mirror. Sam reacts, moving immediately to twist the faucets and adjust the temperature of the water to something more tepid, something just above bearable.

Dean might be an asshole, but he gave his soul to save his little brother. The least Sam can do to return the favor is make sure the guy gets a hot shower.

*******************************************************************

Every morning that Dean wakes is merely a delay of the inevitable.

He knows it, can't possibly forget it, and it takes some difficulty to peel his eyes open, like even his eyelids know how futile resistance will prove to be in the end. When he finally succeeds in working them open, when the motel room stops spinning around him, it's dark and still and silent. Not for the first time, he's momentarily both relieved and terrified by the short-lived thought that Sam has taken off on him.

But Sam wouldn't do that. Once upon a time, for sure. No question about it. But not now; he's too good a guy now, and he takes responsibility for too much. He's got both feet back in the game, and there doesn't seem to be any looking back. This was Dean's call and Dean's decision, and it's _Dean's_ damn life, but Sam refuses to chill and relax and his own life go on. His own life that sure cost enough, and Dean would appreciate it if his brother would stop fuming and moping and start _living_ , and maybe sometime soon, so he can enjoy seeing Sam live a little.

It would maybe be easier if he simply didn't wake one of these days. Easier for him, and certainly easier for Sammy. It would _have_ to be easier if his death came as a surprise, if they both didn't have to stare the unavoidability of it all right in the damn face as it comes snarling toward them. And that's all Dean's ever wanted, to make things easier and _better_ for Sammy.

Sometimes it takes a few minutes upon waking for Dean to really be sure he _isn't_ dead, and that's something that's becoming harder to determine by the day. He lays still a long moment, giving in to his churning gut and pounding head, feeling the oddness and discomfort of the way his arms and legs have twisted up in his blankets throughout the night. His muscles had been well on the way to stiffening up before he dropped like a stone into bed, and the night has not been kind to his body. His right hand, as always, is tucked under the pillow, hilt of his knife gripped tightly. He feels the draft coming in through the generous gap under the room's door and blinks up at the water-stained ceiling over his head, ears now keyed to the sound of the shower spitting through the thin door of the bathroom.

Sam's here, obviously, and that knowledge is a weight lifted and a burden carried, all at the same time.

Dean releases his grip on the knife and finds his palms sweaty, the flesh of his forearms crawling with goosebumps. The lingering evidence of another nightmare he'll never quite remember well enough. The damage has been done, though, same as the day before and same as every day yet to come. Poisoning his mind and shifting his priorities and he never wakes thinking of the day that still lies ahead but the day left behind, the one that's full of regrets and has been forever lost.

At first, seeing Sam alive and well and _standing there_ , it'd felt _worth it_ , dammit. Like a weight that had been suddenly lifted from his shoulders, one the size of Dad and Sammy and the whole damn world. It felt RIGHT, like he'd finally – _God, FINALLY_ – found something he was meant to do. A choice he made all on his own, too. No orders to follow, and there's a bit of smug satisfaction to be felt, knowing that for all Sam's jibes, for all Dad's demands… _he'd_ done this. _He'd_ made the tough call. And Sammy's going to be okay now. He's going to _live_ now.

And Dean prefers not to think of what's going to come after. He figures that's what the nightmares are for. He doesn't have to think about it, but he's sure as hell – no pun intended – not going to be able to forget what's coming for him.

Dean lays there a while, feeling sweaty and scared and relieved and smug…and, damn it, quite a bit hungover, and he doesn't move to pull himself upright until the water shuts off.

Sam isn't in a position to relish the small things, not yet. He doesn't understand how wonderful it can be to linger a moment in a warm, steamy bathroom, isolated from the world and all of the tough calls there are to make on the other side of the door. All he'll be thinking about is whether or not Dean is up and about.

Dean knows he doesn't have much of a window here, knows he'd better be a little more vertical and mobile before the door opens, or there'll be a conversation regarding the reason there's a fucking jackhammer going to work on his skull right now.

He gets himself upright but seems to have gotten himself twisted up _just_ enough in his covers that he can't quite kick the damn sheet completely free of his sweaty legs before a damp and dripping Sam rips the door open, with enough speed and force Dean would think the kid didn't expect him to be alive on the other side.

Dean sits there, feet hanging almost off the edge of the bed, feeling caught and guilty and not at all knowing why. "Morning," he says, voice sounding rough and abused and betraying the true state of a great many things.

"Morning," Sam returns. He cocks his head as he hastily towels off his hair. "Sleep well?"

_Small talk, Sammy? Fuck._ But this talk isn't at all small. This is the same sort of crap Dean used to sling, himself, when Sam was shooting up in bed in the middle of the night, from a nightmare of Jessica or a vision from ol' Yellow Eyes. Like, I know the truth and I'm _standing here_ , and what are you gonna do about it?

Bob and weave, and break every damn tackle. "Like a champ," Dean says, but the lie gets caught in his dry throat and his eyes scout the room for water. Sam used to do those things for him when he took the night too far, leaving out some water and aspirin. Guess that train's left the station. And that's fine, really, because Dean's not even sure he deserves it.

Sam drops his hands, damp towel hanging limply in his grasp. There might not be a glass of water readily available, but his eyebrows pull together into the look of childish, innocent concern that gets him whatever he wants. "Y'all right, man?"

_Not now, dude. Already gave you everything I've got_. Dean doesn't want to be honest anymore, just nods as he moves to fully extricate himself from the suddenly suffocating confinement of the blankets. It sends a flash of agony behind his eyeballs and sort of makes him want to puke but he nods anyway, because it doesn't really matter whether he's okay or not.

And for the record, he's not okay. He's really, really not.

He's fucking terrified.

***********************************************************************

He'd decided to forego the shower, because hangover headache plus water divided by slippery tile just wasn't an equation that Dean felt his body was going to be successful in solving this morning.

Something about that fact wipes the bit of concern from Sam's face, seems to drop him instead into a somber, distant mood, and he's silent as they load up the gear in the car. Dean slides slowly onto the bench, folding himself behind the steering wheel with the sort of deliberate movements his throbbing head can appreciate. Then Sam settles on the seat next to him and pulls his door shut with a slam that Dean feels in his teeth.

His fingers tighten around the wheel as he winces and rotates his head slowly to level a perfect glare of displeasure at his brother. Slowly, to keep from hurling all over his baby. "Was that completely necessary?"

Sam holds up his hands and paints a look on his face he's long outgrown, that sweet spot between ignorance and goodness that covers everything darker growing and rumbling inside. "Hey, if you're allowed to drink half the beer in the town, I'm pretty sure I'm allowed to have fun with your hangover."

Dean rolls his eyes – another not-so-bright idea – and twists the key in the ignition. "You know, I think I liked it better when you were giving me deathbed eyes."

"No, you didn't," Sam grits, Dean's crack sending him a few steps past annoyed into truly infuriated.

_You're too easy a mark, Sammy_. Dean grins tightly. "Well, at least you were nicer then. Respectful of your elders, or whatever."

Sam sighs and sets his moody gaze out of the window as they pull out of the parking lot. "You're a jerk."

"Yeah, yeah." Dean takes one hand off of the wheel and kneads at a stubborn tight spot in his neck. "So why do you think Bobby's got us driving all the way out to New York? What do you think Bobby's doing _in_ New York?"

Sam shrugs, and goes to sitting silent and ramrod-straight against the soft leather of the bench seat. But a quiet Sam can actually prove to be the loudest version of them all, and Dean allows his eyes to slide sideways a few times, registering the clench of his brother's jaw and knowing there's a storm brewing in there.

He could ignore the warning signs, but it's much easier to disarm a brooding Sam right off the bat, before he picks up enough momentum to take out an entire city block when he inevitably blows.

"Uh oh," Dean says as calmly as possible, turning the wheel lazily in his hands as he sends the Impala climbing the ramp back toward the interstate.

Sam sighs but doesn't turn his attention away from the window. "What?"

"You've got that face."

The painted-on expression comes back as Sam shoots dinner-plate-sized eyes his way. Then the kid's eyebrows scrunch together until they're nearly one entity. "It's my normal face."

Dean shakes his head. "It's not. What's goin' on?"

"Nothing."

"Come on, Sammy. Don't make me pull out one of my 'one last wishes' on you." Dean forces a grin on the heel of his words, because there's very little chance Sam's going to find anything funny in what he's just said. But that's just too damn bad, because Dean left self-censorship behind a few months ago.

Predictably, Sam doesn't so much as smile, but Dean's kinda built up a stash of 'get out of jail free' cards. So Sam just sighs again and runs his palms along his jeans, staring down at his shoes. "So, your birthday's coming up."

He was expecting something whiny and unnecessary to come out of his brother's mouth. Something naggy, because he really did drink more than he probably should have last night, minus the _probably_ , and Sam obviously cleaned the room up this morning so Dean wouldn't have to. Something bitchy, like the quality of their meals the past few weeks, because Sam likes food that isn't really food, that's green and meant for four-legged critters. He wasn't expecting this, whatever _this_ is about to be.

The sheer randomness of this statement of Sam's throws Dean for a loop. There is, obviously, still some degree of hangover to take into account here, but all the same, he's slow enough in forming a response that Sam seems encouraged to keep on.

"Did you forget?"

"No," Dean replies quickly, sharply, and without much honesty. In truth, it's not uncommon for Dean to forget this sort of thing, and he prefers to keep to the sidelines, anyway. Hit up a strip club for Sammy's birthday, sure, because he's a lightweight and nervous around pretty and/or half-naked girls and the result is always hilarious and providing future blackmail opportunities, but Dean likes his own to go past unacknowledged, if at all possible. He doesn't really _do_ attention, or expectations, and those two things seem to go hand-in-hand on one's birthday. Besides, it wasn't a day that tended to carry much weight, anyway, not until Sam came back into the picture.

But Sam doesn't do subtle. Sam does _in your face_ and _answers now_ and _we're talking about this_. This is the third go-round of birthdays since he'd dragged Sam back into his life, and Dean's got himself a great big goose egg in getting what he wants. They've got a lot in common, despite protestations on both of their parts, but it's times like this in which their differences of personality stand out starkly. Sam would string up a piñata in the damn motel room if Dean would let him, because he dwells on the ordinary, white-bread things he's lost. And Dean is very much ix-naying the piñata.

Dean slipped up at Christmas, and it cost him. It's still costing him, clearly. They're coming down the home stretch here, and he needs to have resolve, and strength, and instead, that night had let a little bit of resignation into the building. A little bit of, _if I have this moment to remember my brother by, that's enough. That'll do._

Putting into words that it was going to be his _last_ Christmas, so he wanted to do it right.

That slip-up cemented some resolve in Sam but broke something inside of Dean. Something he hasn't been able to put back together. He's scared, and he's uncertain…but one thing he knows for _damn_ sure is that he can't allow another blunder like the night of Sammy's Special Nog. That was a one-time thing, and he can't have Sam making a production at every opportunity over the next few months. He's not going to allow his last couple of months to become a never-ending string of One Lasts, because he won't even make it to the hounds. Sam and his weepy eyes will kill Dean before he hears the first howl.

He's been quiet for too long, and his pauses give Sam power. Dean exhales roughly through his nose, hoping Sam will let this one go and knowing he won't. "You wanna know what I want, Sam? Really?"

Mr. Subtlety nods eagerly and dramatically. "Yeah, I do."

Dean's head bobs, and he throws one for nothing. "Man, I just want us to go about the day like it's any other day. All right?"

Sam's head whips over so fast, Dean feels the whiplash for him. The rest of his body is slow in catching up as he tucks one long leg onto the seat between them, a posture that displays his full confidence in his brother, because he'd be all kinds of broken in an accident. "You can't be serious, Dean. I mean, we just had this awesome Christmas, and there's gotta be something else that you – "

"I mean it, Sam," Dean interrupts him, sharp and drawing out that line between his brother's eyebrows that betrays hurt feelings. "I don't need you to make any kinda… _thing_ out of this. Okay?"

"Okay," Sam surrenders. "Okay, if that's what you want."

"It is. Dude, I swear it is."

"Okay." But it's not okay, clearly, because Sam is slouching in the seat and he's thinking, because he's always thinking, and he's hardly ever thinking, yeah, great idea, Dean.

Dean doesn't need this. Doesn't need the guilt trip and the fucking puppy face when his head is pounding and he's already given Sam literally everything he has to give. But he doesn't know how to do anything other than _make it better for Sammy._ "Hey," he offers. "Maybe we'll still be on this job. Just you and me and Bobby. Some burgers and beers and no one sayin' anything about it, huh? Perfect birthday."

Dean sees it as a compromise, but God only knows how Sam sees it. Especially when he turns back to him with that curled lip of disbelief. "You're serious?"

Dean nods. "As a crossroads deal."

It's a damn long moment before Sam sees fit to speak to him again.

"That wasn't even a little funny."

And Dean doesn't really give a shit, because he wasn't remotely trying to be funny.

***************************************************************************

They don't even spare the time to look around the parking lot for Bobby when they pull into the designated rendezvous point, some nondescript mom n' pop convenience mart with rusty sign swaying with a sawing groan at the roadside. They're still a little ways from their final destination, and Sam's got the passenger door open and one leg thrown out before the car has fully stopped.

"Swear to God, Dean, I'm gonna piss in the goddamn car if you keep driving this slow." He looks just pissed enough for there to maybe be some weight behind that threat, and he's been bitching for hours.

Dean chuckles and brings the Impala to a sudden, jerky stop at the curb, and throws an arm up over the back of the seat as he watches Sam put together a less-than-dignified little hop-skip-run into the store. He sits there a moment, feeling a flush of affection for the kid, and possibly missing him a little already, before flinging his own door wide and stepping out to stretch his legs and crack his spine and maybe leave that thought behind in the car.

A sharp whistle from somewhere behind Dean draws his attention, with an accompanying call of, "Hey. Princess."

Dean reflexively whirls at the sound of Bobby's voice, doesn't catch himself before realizing he's already most of the way through the motion and he's gone and done exactly what the older man was hoping for.

They'd driven right past him and not even noticed. At the far end of the lot and leaning with crossed arms against whichever of his nondescript eighties model cars he'd been able to get running this week, something vaguely blue and looking like a Dodge, Bobby chuckles. "That one never gets old." It's damn cold outside, but Bobby is armed against the chill with no more than his standard garb – a neutral-toned crewneck sweatshirt with sleeves pushed to his elbows and down vest, topped off with a mesh-backed trucker cap that looks as though he pulled it out of a dumpster.

In short, he's a sight for Dean's sore eyes.

Dean rolls those sore eyes as he throws a hand behind him to swing the door shut. He crams his fists into the pockets of his jacket and covers the space between them with long strides. "It's gotten old. Trust me."

"Yeah, well, so have you." Bobby shifts his weight and drags his right arm free, tosses a small box at Dean.

He catches the package against his chest. Just as nondescript as the man's car and about the size of one of Sam's dorky hardback novels, the box is wrapped in plain brown paper and tied with a length of twine that's knotted simply over his name but, curiously, Bobby's address. Dean looks up quizzically at the man. "What's this?"

"Before you try to hug me or somethin,' it ain't from me. Came to my place a few days ago." Bobby points to a corner of the package, where a scrawled _'happy birthday!'_ and a faded red lip imprint stand in lieu of any return address. "You still givin' girls my address?"

Dean shakes his head, studying the lip print like there's any chance in hell he'd be able to pull a name out of his head. "No." He frowns at Bobby. "What, you were just carryin' it around?"

Bobby snorts. "Yeah, because my whole world revolves around you, kid." He shakes his head. "Delivery guy came by while I was packing up the car. Tossed it in the trunk and forgot about it til I called you boys yesterday." He gestures to the package in Dean's hand. "You're sure I can't blame this invasion of my hard-earned privacy on your late night loose lips?"

"Come on, Bobby," Dean snaps. "No."

"Then you've left a hell of an impression on some poor gullible girl somewhere along the line, boy, to go through the trouble to tracking down the one stable address you'd be connected to." Bobby shrugs, still seemingly unaffected by the chill that has Dean's ears and fingers going numb from this short amount of exposure.

He flexes his cold digits around the thick paper wrapping. "Yes, I guess."

"You gonna open it?"

Dean makes a face, and before he has a chance to say _hell no_ , Sam approaches with an easy, much-relieved lope, hands likewise stuffed into the warm pockets of his Carhart jacket, the lucky, unencumbered bastard. "Hey, Bobby."

Dean quirks an eyebrow up at his brother and because he can't help himself, snipes, "What, were you fixin' your makeup in there or something, Sam?"

Sam rolls his eyes, then jerks his chin at the package in Dean's hand. "What's that?"

And, yeah, that was pretty damn stupid of him to dig at Sam while he's little more than a sitting duck here. Dean can feel his previously numb ears now, burning red under the combined scrutiny of his brother and Bobby. "Dunno."

"Birthday present from a _girl_ ," Bobby supplies from his lean against his car.

"Thank you," Dean grits with a glare, as the snow begins to fall.

Sam pulls out that huff/laugh combination that's exclusively his. His shoulders hitch and his cheeks are cherry-red from the cold. "So lemme get this straight, I'm not allowed to make any kind of deal about your birthday, but Bobby's _hand-delivering_ gifts from your one-night stands?"

There's all sorts of subtext in his brother's words, but Dean's not feeling up to translating at the moment. He just blinks. "I don't know what it is, Sam."

Sam raises his eyebrows. "Then open it."

"No," Dean says simply.

"Why not?"

He squirms, hates himself for every bit of it. "You guys are staring at me."

"It's us, Dean," Sam says with a patient sigh. "It's me, and it's Bobby. We're not other people, and whatever that is, it didn't come from one of us. You're not going to disappoint us by not liking it."

"Shut up." For no other reason than to bring this conversation to an end, Dean rips the twine aside, letting it fall to the parking lot and drawing a do-gooder noise of protest from his brother. He digs frozen fingers under the tape on the side of the package and tears the plain paper, already dampened from the fat snowflakes, away without much care.

Sam sighs and holds his hand out to take the wrapping before Dean drops that, as well.

Under the simple wrapping is a wooden case, exactly the size and shape of one of Sam's nerdy books. "Look," Dean comments, blinking. "She got me wood."

"DON'T say it," Sam says pissily before Dean can complete his joke.

"Just sayin'," he goes on anyway, with a smirk. "Probably not the first time."

Sam throws his arms out. "I just said don't say it."

Bobby looks between them, shaking his head in amusement. "What's in the box?"

Dean wrinkles his nose and opens the wooden case, the pad of his thumb grazing a thin slip of fabric nestled inside. Blue, with silver along the border, and some kind of marking all around the edges. Nothing that rings any sort of bells, or has any significance whatsoever. _Would've preferred the wood._

Sam reaches out a nosy, need-to-know hand, fingers brushing against the edge of the ribbon. "What is that?"

"I got no freakin' clue, man. Some chick thing, I guess." And that's more than enough attention for the time being. Dean rips open the rear door on the passenger side of Bobby's car and carelessly tosses the open package onto the bench. It smacks against the split upholstery and bounces to the floor mat. He opens up the collar of his coat and finally crams his frozen fingers back into his pockets. "So what are we doing here, Bobby?" he demands, somewhat harshly, eager to change the subject.

Bobby's pretty well-seasoned to this attitude both of them inherited from their father, and he doesn't even flinch. Plus there's the whole one-way-ticket to Hell thing, which Dean feels a momentary pang of guilt over cashing in on something as stupid as a birthday present. "You boys ever hear of Grossinger's?"

Dean frowns, bouncing on his boot heels to generate some blood flow and warmth. "Is that the guy with the dead cat in a box? What's he got to do with anything?"

Sam sighs his most patient of sighs, the one that makes Dean want to hit him. "That's Schrodinger." He cocks his head, considering. "But I am pretty impressed you knew that."

Dean rolls his eyes. "So what's Grossinger's?"

Bobby jerks his head backwards, towards the snowy mountains rising up behind him. "Resort up in the Catskills. Closed back in '86."

"Oh, yeah, I know that place." Dean withdraws a hand from the blissful comfort of his flannel-lined pocket and snaps his fingers. "Rocky Marciano used to train there, right?"

Bobby nods, but Sam's face is a palette of lost and confused hues. "Who?"

Dean leans closer to his brother and smirks. "Pretty sure you just proved that I'm the smartest person in this conversation."

"You boys plannin' on listenin' any time soon, or do I need to knock your damn bickering heads together?"

Dean holds his hands up in surrender and Sam shoots him an exasperated glare before turning apologetically to Bobby. "Sorry, Bobby, we're listening."

"Well, like I said, place has been closed near thirty years now. S'been quiet. Past few weeks, though, they've had a coupla bodies turn up."

"Who?" Sam asks. "And turn up how?"

_Dead?_ Dean sarcastically supplies in his head, but bites his tongue. There shouldn't be limit on jabs per conversation he's allowed to get in at his brother, but the kid's taking this whole Hell thing pretty hard, and he shouldn't be taking advantage of Sammy's fragile mental state.

"Kids, graffiti artists. One in the bottom of the pool, skull split open. The other was found frozen to death in the snow outside the old dining room. That was this past weekend."

"Could just be accidents," Dean says, shrugging his shoulders. The snowfall picks up, dropped from the gray sky above and collecting quickly on the blacktop and cooling car.

Bobby levels a glare at him. "Would I have asked you boys to drive all the way out here for a couple of accidents?"

Dean winces. "No." The man's right; the mere fact he called them out here lends enough validity to the job to call it a job. He claps his hands together. "Well, then, let's get a move on, fellas. We're burnin' daylight, and my balls are freezin' off, here."

He raises a vague hand to Bobby as the older man turns to dip into the bucket seat of his ride, and a sense of strangeness skitters across Dean's mind, some intimate knowledge of a recognizable emotion dancing somewhere on the outskirts of his own. Like catching a glimpse of someone in your periphery that you can't quite identify. It's…annoyance, maybe? Yet oddly, not his. It's there, whatever it is, but separate from the goings-on of his own mind.

Dean frowns and chews the inside of his cheek. On a pretty healthy hunch, he bumps Sam with his elbow. "Hey, what's the matter with you?"

Sam rocks a step back, caught off guard, maybe. He stares at Dean a long moment, blinking. "I didn't say anything," he finally responds as he drops into the car, but it's not without an edge.

*******************************************************************

_To be continued..._


	3. Chapter 3

The snow picks up in earnest before they arrive at the old resort, and shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon as it blows in slick, dangerous drifts across the blacktop and piling quickly on the wide windshield. It's starting to make a lot of sense why they were passing so many people leaving town as they were coming in.

Dean hits the wipers to clear the glass, making a mental note to get new tires on his baby before leaving her in his brother's sweaty, grandma-driving hands. Sammy always forgets to turn into the slide, and he's going to need all the help he can get.

Sam takes it upon himself to manipulate the radio dials away from the only station Dean found that he could stomach, filling the car with an ear-splitting burst of static until he finds a local weather report confirming suspicions the storm will be continuing at least through the night, but likely tomorrow, as well. That's more than a bit concerning, and not the kind of detail Bobby Singer overlooks or ignores.

It doesn't matter much. Sam is even more annoyed, if such a thing is possible, but Dean can make do with a little snow. He's got some bigger fish to fry at the moment. Namely, this _even more annoyed_ thing little brother's got going on. The morning's hangover headache has subsided to the much more manageable ever-present twinge, but ever since they split up from Bobby, an odd feeling has clung to Dean like a static-y t-shirt straight out of the dryer. Sam hasn't said much, but hasn't needed to for Dean to tell the perpetually annoyed little jerk is bogged down in near-epic levels of irritation. It's a safe enough assumption most days – hell, most _hours_ – but this doesn't feel like just another _something_ bugging his brother, so much as it feels like somethingaboutDEAN.

And Dean doesn't know how he knows that.

They're close, obviously, and he's gotten used to intuiting any of Sam's various moods, and sure, many of those moods come about because Dean himself said or did something stupid. He doesn't always agree, but he gets it. But the kid's so pissy right now, and has been for a few days, it's almost _too_ easy to know there's something off. Maybe on the drive out here, he hadn't diffused the emotional bomb named Sam Winchester quite as well as he'd thought.

Dean leans over the steering wheel and blinks through the blanket of fat white flakes, peering into the weighty gray clouds covering the skies, stretching as far as he can see in any direction. "Would've thought Bobby might've mentioned the blizzard scheduled to hit town."

"It's hardly a blizzard. Stop being dramatic." Sam's posture is one it doesn't seem he'll never outgrow, the one that screams _sulky teenager_ , elbow propped on the door and face screwed up. Stuck in his head, in yet another bout of serious thought or needless anger.

_I don't think I'm the one who's being dramatic here, Sammy Boy_. Dean feels a familiar sense of obligation building inside, the need to speak, to comfort or good-naturedly tease. That obligation that comes from being the big brother, the one he doesn't quite know how to squelch. The reason he's staring down the barrel. "You okay over there?"

"Yeah," Sam says quickly, and without a lick of honesty to it.

Dean's not sure how he knows _that_ , either, but he does. He frowns. "You lyin'?"

Sam shakes his head. It's not denial so much as it is _shut the hell up already_. "Dean…" Like he's disappointed. Maybe a little angry. But Sam _always_ seems a bit disappointed and angry, and _always_ with Dean. Sam in a completely good mood would be as strange as if it were raining upside-down.

The heater rattles, and outside the warm confines of the Impala the snow picks up in speed and volume. Dean adjusts the windshield wipers, taps the brake as the lights flare red on the ass-end of Bobby's rusty ride, and glances again at his perpetually petulant passenger. "What's with that tone, Sam? You sound like one of my high school teachers."

Sam snorts. "Yeah, Dean, I don't think you spent enough time in class to actually know what any of your teachers sounded like."

_Touché, dickbag_. Dean cocks his head and silently concedes that point to his brother. "Still, I mean, I feel like I'm in the doghouse or something here, man. I should at least know what I did, don't you think?"

Sam scoffs, and snow blows off of the drifts steadily building on either side of the two-lane, gusting across the asphalt in swirls that tug at the worn treads of the Impala's tires. The rear-end of Bobby's ride wiggles all over, and Dean keeps both hands firmly on the wheel, thinking again about those bald-ass tires and letting things go unattended too long. In a moment of stability atop the road, he lets his eyes stray once more to his brother.

"Let's just work, okay?" Sam's words are too purposefully hollow, and he's likewise working too hard to put on a blank expression. All of his tells give him away. The flaring nostrils, the twitching lip, the muscle jumping in his jaw. Sam doesn't know how _not_ to be mad at Dean. "That's what you want to do, right? Just hunt?"

Frustration mounting, Dean pulls an expression that sends his headache ratcheting back up a few points. "Do we have some kinda problem here, Sam?"

Sam sighs. THE sigh. "Just drive, okay? This snow picks up any more we're gonna lose sight of Bobby."

Dean can't argue the validity of Sam's concerns, but doesn't fight the smirk that crosses his face, either. "Thought I was just being dramatic?"

*****************************************************************************

Sam's pensive to a possible fault, and he's used to being stuck with the constant barrage of thoughts inside his own busy mind, the hamster wheel relentlessly spinning and his obsessive need to deconstruct every word or phrase spoken to him, any situation he finds himself in. He likes to have a handle on and understand every moment of every day, so sue him. But he knows it drives his brother crazy.

Sam's just not quite sure how he knows right now exactly how _much_ it's driving his brother crazy.

Dean likes to throw accusations and punches, and he's not typically the strong, silent type but he'd given into Sam's own thirst for silence a few miles back. The snowfall has grown in intensity to a dangerous degree, and this last leg of the drive has taken a bit more focus and concentration on his part. Maybe Sam shouldn't have been so quick to dismiss his brother's take on this storm as a veritable blizzard, because it very may well be just that.

"Finally," Dean exhales, perhaps a little moody, himself, as Bobby's car jerks to stop in front of them, the glaring red brake lights barely cutting through the dense blanket of snow falling. He throws the Impala into 'park' and throws open his door immediately, like he just can't escape this captivity with Sam quickly enough, allowing a swirl of fat, wet snow to blow into the car and all the way onto Sam's lap.

Dean turns up the collar of his jacket and rushes through the pelting snowfall to meet Bobby just as the other man is climbing from his car. Sam follows suit, and a gust of wind whips his hair across his forehead as he glances up at the façade of a crumbling brick building he hadn't even seen approaching as their final destination. Needless to say, the initial view leaves much to be desired. What he can actually see of the structure through the snow, that is.

The windows are large and many, but boarded over or missing pieces. Sam can only assume there is plentiful shattered glass to be found littering the ground beneath nearly a foot of accumulated snow, and drifts of the same that have blown into rooms through the broken windows. Bright graffiti decorates the boards and the impressive double front door. The resort appears bleak, desolate, and this first impression is not helped by the stringy, skeletal trees lining what presumably must be sidewalks and parking lot or the blanket of snow quickly accumulating on every available surface, the entire area empty and silent but for the faint _pat pat_ of falling flakes.

"You sure you wanna get started tonight, man?" He's in Bobby's face, but Dean nearly has to shout to be heard over the howling, gusting winds. Snow gathers almost immediately in the creases of his jacket and coats his hair, flattening it to the side of his head. "It's like the end of days out here, Bobby. Shouldn't we find someplace to stay until this storm blows over?"

"Storm ain't blowin' over, kid." Bobby rolls his eyes and jerks open the trunk of his ride. "And we aren't lookin' for someplace else." With a grunt he hefts a pair of worn, ratty duffels and a rolled sleeping bag from inside and raises an eyebrow. "Any more questions?"

Dean's frustration is evident on his fallen face, and his cheeks are ruddy, wind-burned from these few moments spent outside. Sam's own disappointment in these squatting arrangements seems oddly amplified in stereo inside his head. He writes it off as the abusive wind.

He bumps Dean with his elbow and they hurry to grab their own necessary supplies from the trunk of the Impala, prepping for the cold night and a ghost hunt. A fine coating of pristine snow already covers the otherwise dusty black metal, and Sam spots that discarded and discounted _quart_ of motor oil crammed into a far corner, behind loose soiled clothing and a week-old bloodied towel.

"Don't forget the cooler," Dean orders, tucking the double-barrel under his arm and gripping the lid of the trunk to shut it.

Sam shoots his brother a loaded glare that he's sure doesn't need much interpretation, but scoots around to the pull open the back door and scoot the green mainstay from the bench. It feels full, and ice sloshes audibly inside, and Sam shakes his head. He couldn't honestly say when his brother ferreted out the time to fill the cooler, but leave it to Dean to ensure quick and easy access to alcohol, because his priorities are still those of their father. _Leave him alone_ , he berates himself, and hefts the cooler under an arm.

By the time they're fully loaded down with weapons, duffels and their own sleeping rolls, and, by God, the beer, Bobby has already cut through the padlock and thick chain looped through the door handles.

Once inside, Dean huffs and grumbles indecipherably while he stomps snow from his boots and brushes it from his hair. "Bobby, this is insane," he complains. With his red cheeks and tousled, wet hair, he looks like a sullen little boy who was called in for dinner before he was finished playing outside.

Bobby grins, cocking his head. "It ain't like we're campin,' boy. You can quit your hand wringing. There's still a roof over your head."

Dean tilts his head back, squinting up at the high, textured ceiling. "Yeah, kinda." He whistles, low. "Bobby, are we safe here?"

Bobby gives him a look like it's the dumbest question that's ever been asked of him. "From the ghost?"

A piece of the ceiling comes loose and smacks to the floor between them. "From the _building_ ," Dean says, eyes widening as he points upward.

Bobby simply chuckles, and Sam scrutinizes their surroundings, himself. The roof is, admittedly, dripping in more than one spot, and the walls are streaked with black mold and decorated with holes and cracks, chunked plaster spotting the bare, dirty cement floor. A split double staircase stands at the opposite end of the large space, the stripped cement adorned with the same bright scrawls and poufs of spray paint that littered the outer walls.

The sight of the dim, decrepit lobby – the massive stone fireplace stretching nearly wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling, specifically – is vaguely familiar. Sam had put it together in the car but hadn't seen fit to tell the anecdote, that he'd done some coincidental research on this very place a few months back, when he was trying to put together a list of things Dean might like to do during his last year, and he'd somehow mixed up Grossinger's with the Stanley Hotel. That was before Dean became such a colossal ass about the whole thing, and it's a mental gaff he's kept to himself, didn't really see the need in bringing to Dean's attention that he'd mistakenly identified this decaying property with the setting of one of his brother's favorite movies.

From this research and his ongoing general curiosity, Sam knows the resort closed for good back in eighty-six, but from the look of the place the years that have passed have been unkind, and it appears to have been abandoned a lot longer than that.

"Bobby…" Dean continues, shaking his head. He throws his arms out to encompass the state of the building, roughly depositing his bags to _smack_ atop the cold cement. "Okay. _This_ is not a hotel. _This_ is a breeding ground of ick and…and _yech_ and it's probably going to come down on us before the snow stops. Also? It's fucking _freezing_ , man."

"Bet you wish you'd taken that shower now, huh?" Sam says with a smirk.

Bobby hefts the strap of his own bag over his shoulder. "You want me to find you something more comfortable, Your Highness? Maybe something with an ocean view?"

No one quite knows how to handle Dean like Bobby does, or how to fluster him. Dean fumbles wordlessly for a moment, and Sam's pretty sure he sees his brother stomp his foot.

Bobby sighs, points his sleeping bag in the direction of the large, boarded over windows at the far end of the lobby. "Storm's pickin' up out there, and if we didn't get up here now, chances are we weren't gonna."

"And we couldn't wait the storm out _why?_ "

Bobby shrugs. "Figured this was gonna give us our best shot of seeing the place without the chance of any other wayward visitors."

Sam lifts his chin, getting it. Doesn't mean he's the plan's biggest fan, but Bobby's got a point. "And no one else can get hurt."

"Well, that's just fantastic." Dean's head bobs, as he digs a flashlight out of an inside coat pocket. "You can tell my frostbitten ass that at least no one else got hurt."

His continued complaining is for show, Sam knows. He's never put his own well-being ahead of innocent blood being spilled, and he's not about to start now. "He hit his head yesterday," Sam tells Bobby.

"Ah," Bobby says, crouching to unzip his duffel. He drags out a flashlight of his own and a shotgun, and drops a handle of spare salt cartridges into a deep pocket of his coat.

"What does that mean?" Dean asks, shooting a glance between Sam and Bobby that looks a little like a kicked dog. "I _barely_ hit it, and what does that have to do with anything, anyway?"

Bobby chuckles as he lays out his bedroll. "You boys are gonna be the death of me, I swear."

"Yeah, well," Dean comments darkly, turning to point his flashlight into the black corners of the cavernous lobby. "That's pretty much what we do."

Sam clenches his jaw, resists the urge to grab Dean by the lapels and haul his sarcastic ass up against a wall. He knows his brother is just deflecting his feelings, but he doesn't have to be such a dick about it. "Just make your bed, Dean."

***************************************************************************

Bobby's come predictably prepared with a map of the property; they wouldn't expect any less from the bookman. The grounds are huge and sprawling, with multiple buildings and smaller cabins, an indoor pool, tennis court and a golf course that still functions during the appropriate months. If it's a ghost they're looking for, and therefore most likely some sort of remains, there are dozens of places they'll need to search.

"We're lookin' for the usual," Bobby says, counting the shells in the deep cargo pocket of his vest. "In all the usual places."

It goes without saying, but Sam finds himself listing anyway, "Walls, floors…"

Dean hops on his balls of his feet where he's crouched inspecting the contents of the weapons duffel. His eyes once more survey the large lobby, wide flashlight beam trailing not far behind. "What kind of square footage we lookin' at here, Bobby?"

"You got somewhere else to be?"

"Couldn't get there if I did."

Bobby props the barrel of his shotgun against his shoulder and nods. "You're damn right. So buck up and let's handle this ghost, ladies."

Due to the severity of the storm, they decide as a collective – and Dean rather enthusiastically – that the best course of action for the time being is to stick to the main building of the hotel. They've already armed up with the shotguns and salt rounds, and the next strategic move is to split up to cover more ground, Bobby wandering off quickly to another wing of the building. He usually only makes himself scarce like this when they've gone to squabbling "like an old married couple," but Sam really doesn't think they've been that bad. In the very least, they've certainly been worse.

Night has fallen quick and dark and they've already lost the benefit of what little daylight had been filtering in through the windows that aren't boarded up, and are now completely at the mercy of sharp, trained eyes and flashlight beams.

The entire time they prowl the narrow, crumbling corridors of the hotel, there's something nagging in the back of Sam's mind, and has been since they stepped into the ruins of the resort. Maybe even since before. Something there on the edge of everything he's aware of, but that he can't quite put his finger on well enough to put a label to.

Dean's bitching has lingered as heavy and persistent as the chill in the air that's leaking in through the many holes in the building's exterior. Every bit of it is bullshit, so Sam pays it no mind. It's better not to engage.

"Oh, we're gonna get tetanus, dude," Dean groans as the hallway opens up to another cavernous room with floor-to-ceiling windows along every wall, smelling excessively of rot and maybe somewhat of sewage.

In the middle of the room is a mildew-y pit that used to be the sizeable, and probably pretty nice, swimming pool. Sam steps up to the very edge, boot sole slipping a bit in the muck slopped across the cement lip, and he throws out a hand to steady himself against the diving board, grimacing as his palm contacts something he'd rather not inspect any more closely. The tiling along the sides of the pool is, rather unsurprisingly, covered in even more graffiti, clouds of blue and orange stretching from the bottommost tile right up to kiss the cement slope over which his boot is currently propped. Three ripped and ragged beach chairs stand in a line in the shallow end, their vinyl supports stretched and sagging.

"This was probably a nice place, huh?" Sam wonders aloud, wiping the grime from his palm across the thigh of his jeans. "Once?"

"Yeah, it's great." Dean steps carefully over a pile of rubble, of metal rods and a wayward, rotting tree limb that had blown inside some time ago. He lets the beam of his flashlight lead his way as he moves to the other end of the room, giving the large empty basin a wide berth. "Don't fall in. I'm not comin' in after you."

Sam watches his brother drift in and out of patches of moonlight across the room. "Sure you are."

Something about his own hypothetical and outlandish scenario has irked Dean, and his voice is somewhat rough as he mumbles a coarse, quiet, "Whatever."

Sam smirks and moves to follow, then is brought to an abrupt stop in his tracks, staring at the back of his brother's head. Somehow, he suddenly knows exactly what it is that's been tugging at the edges of his awareness.

Fear.

It's now very clearly fear that is roiling through his mind, coming in subtle but unstoppable waves, like an irreparable leaky faucet that's more annoying than wasteful. Nothing excessive, but certainly persistent, and Sam hadn't been able to put his finger on the emotion before because his body isn't responding in kind. No chills, no cold sweats…at least nothing due to more than the oppressive chill in the air.

This fear he's sensing but not _feeling_ , it isn't…it isn't _his_.

That realization rocks Sam back a step, sends him slipping once more against the slick cement floor, because it doesn't make any sense at all, and it's just about the oddest damn thing he's ever thought.

His eyes go immediately back to his brother, taking in Dean's pasty complexion and the sheen of perspiration across his brow despite the relative chill of the room. Both are obvious in the rising moonlight and fairly par for the course the past couple of…well, maybe _months_ , but he's perhaps grown used to the look on the man, just like he has the scrapes and bruises. At least, enough so that he'd never thought to put a label to what he was seeing there in the depths of Dean's dark eyes.

Sam makes a face, shakes his head like he's got water in his ears. "Dean, are you…"

"Am I what?" Dean responds quickly, like someone pushed a button. He whirls back to face Sam. "Hilarious? Adorable? Better than you in every possible way?" He lifts his flashlight, pointing the beam in Sam's eyes. "The answer's yes, by the way."

The waves of fear are still faint but rolling insistently through his mind, crashing in tandem with the pulse jumping visibly beneath his brother's jawline. He can't believe he didn't notice before. It's been there for a while, just beneath the surface. It seems so obvious now. "Afraid," Sam supplies tentatively, eyebrows knit together.

Dean grins, but it's forced, nervous. _Caught_. "Not of anything more dangerous than lockjaw from the rusty nail I'm gonna step on any minute now." He frowns, flashlight bobbing as he crosses the space. "And what the hell kinda question is that, Sam? You haven't talked like that since…I thought your shining got turned off when Yellow Eyes died."

"It did." Sam frowns.

Dean's eyes are wide, covering what's really going on. "Well, if it's back, you need to return it, because it's defective. I'm fine."

"This isn't…it isn't that. I didn't see anything…I can, I don't know." Sam shakes his head again, brings a hand up to scrub at his temple. "Sense it?"

"Sense _what_ , Sam?"

"Fear. And it isn't mine." He hears it as he says it, and can't but think, _well, that's about the stupidest thing I've ever said._

Dean blinks, and seems to agree with him. "You say a lot of strange things, Sam, but that right there might take the cake."

Sam rolls his eyes. "Okay. So maybe it's this ghost, or…whatever, man, you're telling me you don't…you don't _feel_ that?"

"Feel what?" Dean's eyes are dinner plates in the beam of Sam's flashlight. "Brother, I feel tired and hungry and goddamn cold, and that's about it."

Sam stamps his foot, worries his bottom lip. "You don't get a sense that there's something else here? Like, something _with_ us?"

Dean shrugs. "Well, like you said, there's a ghost. Somewhere. According to Bobby."

"I think…" Sam cocks his head and averts his eyes. He takes a moment to assess what he's feeling, before he says what he wants to. When he's sure, he turns his gaze back to his brother, locks on Dean's eyes in a way that leaves the other man squirming, because Dean doesn't like to feel vulnerable, or on display. And if Sam's right, that's exactly what's happening. "I think it's you, Dean."

"You think _what's_ me, Sam?"

"The fear that I'm…Dean, it's you. You're afraid of…I don't know." Sam swallows, and finds himself unable to maintain that eye contact with his brother. "I don't know. But you're afraid of something. And I think it's something big."

Dean makes the not-quite-a-laugh sound Sam last heard right before his brother slugged him outside of that motel in Red Lodge more than a year ago. It's _get the fuck out of my face_ and _how did you know_ all rolled into one. Dean says more without words than he does with. "That's not me, Sam," he says finally. "I don't talk like that."

Sam nods, and he's almost never been surer of anything as he says steadily, "But you think like that."

Dean brings a hand up to scratch at his chin, drags a knuckle under his nose. It's kind of amazing the guys cleans up at poker like he does. But then again, he doesn't win quite as often when it's just the two of them. "You don't know anything about how I think." He raises his flashlight and points in the direction of their point of ingress, signaling the end of this train of thought. "Let's get the lead out. We've got a lot of real estate to cover, and it's not getting any warmer."

****************************************************************************

He's not mad. At least, he doesn't think he is…didn't think he was…but there's something red and angry, raging and churning like a tornado on the outskirts of his consciousness, confusing the hell out of him and gaining traction the further they move into the hotel.

_The ghost_ , Dean guesses. Something strange this particular spirit's got brewing, because the anger is there but he's _calm_ , and a pair of fingertips pressed discretely against the inside of his wrist confirms this. This feeling of anger itself is an unfamiliar brand, and he really doesn't have any reason to be mad at his little brother. Despite Sam's asinine claim to be picking up on some kind of fear in the area he seems to think is coming from Dean. Which is clearly ridiculous.

_Obviously_.

It's a big-ass building, creepy as hell and, sure, chunks of the ceiling are randomly crashing into their path, but there's nothing to be afraid of here. A little garden variety spook, sure, who'd booed a couple of dumbasses into early graves, but he and Sam are trained for this, and Casper's not getting the jump on either of them like some random prick with a can of spray paint.

But Sam's a dog with a whole fucking _bag_ of bones, and after roughly ten minutes of beautiful silence, he isn't letting up. "Dean, are you sure – "

"Oh, my GOD, Sam," Dean exclaims before he can properly put a stopper in whatever well this anger is spewing up from. His fingers tighten around the grip of his Maglite, and that's unexpected, because he's not usually the one who throws things when angered. That's Sam's jam, pretty much exclusively. "I'm fucking _sure_ , okay?"

"Yeah," Sam says quickly, jaw clenched as tight as the muscles in Dean's own neck. "Okay. Okay, I'll drop it."

"Thank you." _Shit_. Dean's legs send him stomping away down the hall. There's a phantom itch under his skin, something crawling and just not at all right, and he really can't seem to figure out a way to get away from Sam fast enough. The kid's annoying, sure, but no more so than any other days. Still, he finds himself shooting a sideways glance at his little brother, formulating an exit strategy. "It's a big-ass place," he says, giving voice to his observations.

"Mmm hmm." Sam seems distracted, maybe butt-hurt over Dean's outburst, maybe just thinking about things he won't ever say. Same as always.

"Maybe we should split up," Dean puts forward, trying to make it sound like a casual suggestion, but he's pretty sure it comes out rushed and desperate. "Cover more ground."

Sam sighs. "Dean, I really don't think splitting up is our best – "

"Sam," Dean barks, still not truly mad but feeling some degree of irritation all the same. "Bobby's…well, God knows where. Could be outside building a friggin' snowman for all we know. We're already split up. So quit it with the dewy eyes and goddamn hand-holding, okay?"

It's all said with a bit more bite than was necessary or intended. Sam just blinks, because _he's_ typically the one that has these sorts of outbursts, and Dean's gone and done it twice now in the span of five minutes.

Dean's not even sure what's brought this about, himself. He shakes his head as the anger inside spirals around on itself, picking up speed like a hurricane and pounding mercilessly like a jackhammer to his skull. A hangover on crack. The fucking Rawhead had more finesse than whatever the hell this is. Or maybe that hit to the ol' noggin in Ohio was a little harder than he'd thought.

In any case, he wants this deer-in-headlights version of Sam to be not standing right next to him anymore, that he does know, and Dean hefts the shotgun gripped in his right hand like he's going to do something with it. "Got a big 'ol can of spook repellant right here, and you're makin' my trigger finger itchy. Now start walkin' before I start shootin.'" He narrows his gaze, as if to tell his brother, _you know I owe you one_.

Sam raises his hands in mock surrender, jaw still clenched to a point of pain. "All right. I'm going. Call me if you find anything."

Dean gives a sarcastic salute with the shotgun, and his brother stalks down the corridor without a moment's pause, taking long, frustrated strides.

"Don't get killed," Sam calls over his shoulder, loud and dripping with sarcasm the same way cold water drips from the ceiling overhead.

Dean rolls his eyes and turns on his heel to wander in the opposite direction. Whatever was going on in his head just now is abating, and he knows he shouldn't have said that thing about shooting Sam. He'd never do it, he didn't mean it, and he doesn't know what made him say such a thing. He has a strange feeling, like it wasn't even _him_ that really said any of it, thought any of it. _You know I owe you one?_ Hell, that was a lifetime ago, and he's never come _close_ to being pissed enough at his brother to say something like that.

Dean gives himself a well-deserved mental cuff across the back of the head and turns, every intention of calling the kid back for the manliest hug-and-cry he can muster, but Sam's already gone, swallowed by the guts of the hotel.

Dean sighs and tucks the shotgun under his left arm, digging his right hand into the pocket of his jeans to withdraw his cell phone, because now he literally has to call hisbrother back to him. Before he can get far enough into the motion of sending his brother some weak-ass apology in the form of a text message, the EMF detector in his jacket wails and draws his full attention.

He stuffs the phone back into his pocket and pulls out the device, narrowing his eyes at the flaring red bulbs across the top. _That's a bit predictable_ , he muses. But hell, he'll take predictable, so long as he gets to gank this ghost and get the hell outta this pit and snowstorm and somewhere a little warmer. With preferably a sizable amount of beer and/or whiskey.

Dean cocks his head. And maybe a strip club, he decides, because Sammy's got a point, and it is his birthday.

He climbs a set of narrow stairs at the end of the corridor, and then takes a right turn into a new hallway, finding himself at the start of a stretch of guest rooms. He leads with the flashlight and EMF, coming to a stop when another bulb atop of the device flares red.

He steps cautiously into the tiny room to his left, training the beam of his light along the edges of crumbling crown molding, pausing briefly on the gap where a vent cover is missing, and where the torn, dirty drapes are caught up on the wall. Both Dean and his light come to a stop as his eyes lock onto a fluffy, overturned object lying in the center of the room. He steps forward and nudges the item with the toe of his boot, flipping it over to reveal a blood-stained brown teddy bear, its handstitched mouth contorted into a terrifying grin.

Dean looks up and glances around the room with wide eyes. "Oh, yeah, that's comforting," he mutters to himself.

His fingers once more feel out the plastic casing of his cell in his pocket as he crouches, but upon further inspection decides the blood is old, not bright but rust-colored. With a tentative hand Dean confirms the matted fur of the teddy bear is rock-hard. Wherever, whoever the blood came from…it's been a long time. Years, probably.

Dean kicks the useless fluffer aside, bouncing it off of the wall. "Thanks for nothing, ya little red herring."

He has just enough time to reassure himself that he's used the term correctly and he should do so again, but in front of Sam, when the EMF detector squawks to life once more in his palm. Dean finds himself narrowing his eyes at where the bear now lies grinning in the corner. "Have I upset you in some way?"

A draft blows in through a gap in the windowpane with a low whistle, rustling the drapes. Dean exhales forcefully, studying the cloud of his breath in front of his face before giving himself another mental cuff. "Look," he nervously addresses the room. "I don't know if you've noticed, but the usual things aren't really gonna work right now, so if you could maybe…"

A figure blows past the open doorway to his right, bright and feathery and ethereal. It sets the hair standing straight on the back of Dean's neck and he nods, slowly tucking both his flashlight and the EMF detector away into his deep jacket pockets, swapping them for the salt-loaded shotgun. "Yeah, that'll work."

He lets the sawed off double-barrel guide his path as he moves slowly and steadily back into the hallway, instinct and sparse moonlight leading him back toward the empty, spacious lobby. He pauses at the railing overlooking the room, near the mouth of the wide main staircase. He spots where they'd deposited their bags but there's no sign of either Sam or Bobby. _Big-ass place_. Another sizeable piece of the ceiling comes loose and smacks to the floor as he stands there. _Fantastic digs_.

Even though it's just him, he doesn't seem to be alone; Dean catches the figure in the corner of his eye, hovering near the staircase, and brings the gun up as he turns.

Dean lines up a shot but before he can pull the trigger he's punched in the chest by – from the feel of it – a battering ram he can't see.

Arms frantically windmilling, he feels out a hard surface to his left and almost catches himself against the wide railing, but his boot heel slips across a patch of something slick on the concrete, and gravity pretty much takes it from there.

*****************************************************************************

_To be continued..._


	4. Chapter 4

He doesn't remember being at an amusement park recently…or, you know, really ever, because it's not like that's an activity riddled with forced family fun that they ever had the time for, but it's gotta be the only explanation for the way he's suddenly being jostled and thrown around. Not that Dean would really _know_ ; he's always steered clear of anything that was built with the sole purpose of rocketing him skyward at the mercy of a frayed seatbelt. With planes, it's not so much about the heights as it is the sheer helplessness. That, and the fact he can't have any weapons on him. Not even a damned pocketknife, and what the fuck's with that? He might as well be naked. He knows exactly where the damned line is between _prepared_ and _paranoid_ , regardless of what Sam has to say.

With roller coasters, it's very much about the fucking heights, and very much about the fact there ain't a damn thing prohibiting you from gazing down at the crowds and asphalt below and imagining the size of the splat you'd make. Or so he can only assume. He'd never be caught dead on one of the things, but there's suddenly a thick weight like a lap belt around his middle and he's being tugged upright while gravity fights to keep him down, his heavy head shoved in all manner of directions.

Dean thinks he might make a displeased sound of some kind; his lips definitely move and the intention is there, but even whatever commotion is happening around him isn't enough to have him working his eyes open. _No, thank you._ Things on this side of his eyelids are unstable enough, and he's a bit concerned to see what the world on the other side is doing. Probably upside-down and halfway to Hell, from the feel of it. And, yeah, he can pretty much relate to that.

"Just…stop talking, _please,_ Dean, stop talking."

He _is_ making sounds, then. _Good to know._ And that voice sounds a lot like Sam, all high-pitched and patronizing and needlessly urgent, and that means the ginormous mitts that are pawing at his chest and face and – _ow, head, off the HEAD you handsy sonuvabitch_ – must also belong to the big galoot.

Not roller coasters, then, Dean decides in a window of pain-provoked clarity, just a manhandling little brother who forgot a long time ago that he was supposed to be little.

"Yeah, well, you forgot a lot of things, too," Sam says, warbly and now with too much bass, like he's messing with the motherfucking stereo settings in Dean's baby again, and he should know better that.

Dean wants to tell his brother to keep his mitts off of things that don't yet belong to him because he's not fucking dead yet and Sam's being a disrespectful little shit, and he might actually be saying the words, might actually get part of the way through saying it, or maybe all the way. Suddenly his jaw is snapping shut around a wordless groan as the asshole hauls him up against that more appealing downward tug of gravity, and sticks his back against a hard, cold surface.

Seemingly satisfied by the nauseating angle he's gotten Dean tilted into, Sam's hands stop moving, poking, prodding. They go blessedly still, one resting stovetop-hot and stone-heavy on his chest and another gripping the back of his neck almost painfully.

"Hey." Definitely Sam, no question about it now, and barking at him. Clearly expecting a response of some kind.

"Hmmm," Dean hums thickly in an obligatory reply, and the buzzy sound reverberates from his cold lips through his skull like an unstoppable pinball. It'd be great for a high score but it's hell on his head, and he winces, tries to turn away from the assault of it. No such luck, because Sam's got him pretty well pinned in place at the moment, and doesn't seem too keen on letting him get loose.

"How you doin'?" Sammy asks, high-pitched again, like he's talking to a pretty girl.

Dean thinks on that a moment, taking stock of a dozen points of pain, the dull thump of fresh bruising and the sharp agony of a possibly – _fuck possibly; DEFINITELY_ – cracked rib, before letting loose a heartfelt and eloquent, "Ow."

Sam maybe laughs, but not from humor and that fits because Dean can't think of much happening right now that's funny, and the large hand on the back of his neck grips tighter, an affectionate, and maybe frightened, squeeze.

_Not maybe…definitely frightened._ Dean knows it now, knows Sammy is scared and it's because of him and none of that makes much sense.

"That the best you've got?" Sam asks, thick and slow and through his throat, like the words have to claw their way out of him.

"Thought you didn't want me to talk." Dean's own words come out mushy, all run together and underwater-sounding.

Sam seems to get it well enough, though, and the weight on Dean's chest eases up a bit. "You wanna sit up a little bit more?"

"You askin' cuz you're gonna listen to what I say or you just askin'?" The inquiry takes enough of his breath that after he's forced the words out Dean feels light and heavy at the same time, wavering on the threshold of brittle consciousness. He might as well buy a timeshare on this line, the number of times he's visited.

"Pretty much just asking," Sam admits, already moving, already shifting on the balls of his feet, prepping for an emergency fraternal relocation. "You caught me."

That's as much of a warning as he's given, and Dean groans as he's "helped" into something of a seated position. He plants his hands on the cold, gritty surface below and maneuvers himself as quickly as his abused body allows to put that flat surface completely at his back. Sam doesn't let him go entirely, just moves his hands to tug on different limbs until he's apparently satisfied with the position of his new poseable Dean doll.

Dean really couldn't say what sort of position that is, and he really can't be bothered to care all that much. He can feel the existence of his arms and legs, but that's about all he's got as far as awareness for the time being, other than that lingering knowledge that something is scaring his brother. And he's still pretty sure it's him.

Sam's massive hands go about poking all sorts of things that don't seem to like being poked, mostly his head, because Sam likes to go for the kill, for the exact thing you want him to leave the fuck alone. He tips Dean's head forward, and the damn thing feels like it weight a hundred pounds. He's kinda surprised it doesn't fall right off his shoulders and into his lap. Then a flash of pain like a lightning strike rockets through his skull, and he can't do much to clamp down on this second dissatisfied hum that escapes through his lips.

"Sorry," Sam says, though he sounds anything but.

"You 'bout done?" Dean asks breathily, the heat of his words warming his chest through layers of fabric, seeing as he's nearly bent in half.

"Almost, man." Sam hisses as he prods the source of the lightning bolt. "Got a nasty knot back here."

"Tell me about it." _On second thought,_ don't _tell me about it._

The empty space behind his eyelids suddenly goes from the relative comfort of pitch black to more of a red-tinted backdrop, and Dean groans, steeling himself for what's next. Because Sam is also all about procedure, and what _should_ be done.

"You know the drill. Need you to open your eyes, dude."

Dean shakes his head, or at least gives it the old college try, and he's suddenly clenching his jaw against a very unwelcome rise of nausea.

"Yeah," Sam says seriously. "Don't puke on me, please."

Dean's not positive that he's the one in charge of these sorts of things. When he opens his mouth to let Sam know that, he's pretty sure the guy figures it out for himself, based on the speed at which he seems to lean out of the way.

"Dude," Sam says after he's placed himself out of the line of fire, but still plenty disgusted. "If I had a dollar for every time you almost puked on me…"

Dean wants to tell Sam that he's the puke-y one. That he had washed so much regurgitated milk and Cheetos out of his shirts when they were little, long before he even had a clue what in the hell he was doing, and maybe _that's_ why he doesn't like doing laundry now. Maybe _that's_ why he'll turn a t-shirt inside-out if he's in a pinch, and Sam doesn't need to act like he's killed someone's pet Golder Retriever every time he does it.

But the last thing he wants is for Sam to feel like any kind of burden, and Dean swallows a few times, forcing the sick feeling back down where it belongs. He can tell Sam's still got the damn flashlight out, and he throws out a hand to force that away, too, leaving his balance at his brother's mercy. Dean doesn't really give two shits what his pupils are doing at the moment, and he's sure he's not gonna like the answer, anyway. "Go 'way, Sammy."

"You want me wait for Bobby to do it?"

That's a threat if ever there was one, because Bobby's got the subtlety of a freight train and the gentleness of…well, a freight train. Dean shakes his head, and Sam almost pays the price by copping it right into his lap this time. Or so Dean can only hope.

"Come on, man."

Dean sighs, and gives Sammy what he wants, because he doesn't know how to do anything else. He pries one eye open just in time for the poor thing to be assaulted by a goddamn _laser beam._ He groans and goes to shut the eye again but FUCK if Sam isn't quick as all get out, if he doesn't get a hand in there to keep the fucker opened wide.

"Son of a bitch," Dean whispers.

"Yeah, I know. Sorry, dude."

Sam doesn't _sound_ too sorry, and he doesn't _feel_ too sorry, and…and that was a really weird thought. Dean shakes his head, tries to dislodge it much like water in his ears.

"What's goin' on, man?"

"M'just thinkin' weird."

"Yeah? You're thinking weird?" In what can be nothing more than an act of mercy, Sam tucks the light away and gives Dean's shoulder a gentle shake. "Probably to be expected. Probably gonna be thinking weird for a little bit, big brother. One of these days, I'm gonna get you a helmet, I swear to God."

Dean doesn't think he says anything, but he must have, because Sam is not-laughing again, and saying, "No. It's gonna be pink and glittery. Son of a bitch."

All of a sudden, it's somehow clear to Dean that Sam might not so much be shaking his shoulder as he is shaking while holding Dean's shoulder.

***********************************************************************

Sam's not really in a mood to be fucked around with, and he hasn't been for quite some time now. For about eight months, if anyone is looking to get specific about it. He doesn't need this, and _Dean_ doesn't need this, but that doesn't seem to keep it from finding them. _It_ being senseless pain and the accompanying panic, and trouble with a capital "T" lurking around every corner, always looking to throw a wrench into what could have otherwise been a good day. Or at least a day in which he didn't have to think about losing his big brother.

_Yeah,_ Sam thinks bitterly. _Let's just keep hunting, Dean. Jackass._ He's being nice, because there's really no need to confine these thoughts to his mind. It's not like his idiot brother is really with it, anyway. And _he's_ the one who'd answered Bobby's call. _Voicemail, Sam. I don't give a shit if Dad himself calls from the grave, you let it go to voicemail next time._

Muscles in his calves cramping, Sam holds his breath against the smell wafting up from the small pile of sick next to his shoes and adjusts his brother into a new position atop the landing of the split staircase in the lobby. Where he'd run up a few moments before to see Dean sprawled and looking broken and lifeless across the cement steps. Turned out he was thankfully neither, except maybe a rib that's gonna give him hell anytime he's in the motion of sitting or standing, but he's still a bit sluggish in coming completely around.

In fact, Dean is little more than a nonsensical ragdoll in Sam's hands. His muttering is random, barely comprehensible, laced with pain, and he's got a hell of a bump in back – a pair of them now – and blood in his hair to match this time. Sam can't believe he thought for a second that they were headed anywhere other than right here, because Winchester luck is simply a decided, nearly comical lack thereof, and they always seem to end up right here.

A thunder of heavy bootfalls approaches on Sam's periphery, echoing and pounding up the dozen or so steps to reach this landing, and he can't help the relief he feels in Bobby's presence. The man's a comfort without trying to be, and Sam finds his shoulders slumping as he willingly passes over some – but certainly not all – of the burden of his brother.

Bobby nods and eases Dean's shoulders to rest against his own chest as he crouches opposite Sam. He clucks his tongue and pulls a clean handkerchief from a pocket. Sam is quick to grab the cloth and press it gingerly to the cut he'd found in the back of Dean's head. Dean, who'd put forth his best shot but has all but given up on the idea of consciousness for the time being, is now propped equally between them with his head lolling like a helium balloon on a windy day.

Everything that needs to be discussed has already gone by without having to be said. The two of them have gotten pretty damn good at communicating about Dean when he's in the room with them, because he hates to be the cause of any sort of fuss, and would gladly sit mutely in a dark corner bleeding to death if it meant the two of them wouldn't be talking about him.

"He'll be okay," Sam says, but waits for Bobby's nod of confirmation before allowing himself to really believe it.

Bobby swallows, throat visibly working, because neither of them is ready for this, and an accident seems like an incredibly cruel way to lose the jerk. "Might wanna start invitin' me, you want me to be here in time for the party."

" _I_ wasn't even in time for the party, Bobby." Sam shakes his head, keeping a firm fistful of the fabric of Dean's jacket. "I don't have any idea what happened." But it sounds wrong as he's saying it, because the two of them have a pact not to withhold anything from one another.

Bobby gently tugs the EMF detector free from Dean's jacket pocket. He hefts it in his hand, studying the dark, quiet device. "Ghost," he says, not so much a suggestion as it is a statement of fact. His eyes narrow and sweep the space. "I mean, your brother's no graceful swan, but he does okay with stairs."

He's aiming to get Sam to smile, to take on some of the heavier weight he's carrying now, but Sam can't stop thinking back on what he's just said. _I don't have any idea what happened._

Because, _well, that's not quite true, is it, Sam?_

The thought causes him to recoil, in apparent obvious fashion, as Bobby quirks a curious eyebrow. The man doesn't miss a thing. "Sam, what is it?"

His eyes meet Bobby's over Dean's bowed head. Sometimes it's quite annoying, how perceptive the older man can be. He frowns and adjusts his brother until he's leaning more fully against the short wall, keeping pressure on the head wound with Bobby's folded kerchief. He doubts anything will quite _feel_ comfortable for the guy for the next day or so, but at least he's in a position now where it looks like it should.

"Sam," Bobby prods, and it's kind of unfair that there's a bit of cockiness riding shotgun to his concern, like he knows Sam is going to spill for him.

He hates to be predictable, but there's something damn strange going on here, and Bobby's known to know a little bit of everything strange. "I knew something was wrong," Sam admits.

An eyebrow lifts as Bobby sits back a bit on his heels. "What do you mean?"

"I mean…" Sam's fingers tighten around a fold of coarse, cold fabric, dragging his brother closer. "We split up, and I still knew something was wrong. I don't…how would I know that, Bobby?"

Bobby sighs, and his eyes drop to Dean's pinched face. "Well, your brother's done something damn…stupid, but _big_ for you, Sam. And we're kinda comin' down the homestretch here. Might not be outta the question for you to start – "

"It's not that, Bobby," Sam is quick to correct. He's pretty sure he would know if this, whatever it is, was because of the deal. "It wasn't that. It was…I dunno." He thinks back on earlier in the evening, how he'd _felt_ that fear that he could swear was Dean's. "It's like I could tell what he was feeling."

"And what was that?" Bobby asks evenly, clinically. Collecting information with narrowed, skeptical eyes.

Sam takes a breath, because they're already operating outside of normal circumstances, and the man's going to be pissed Sam didn't say something as soon as he thought there was something off. "It was…he was afraid, before – "

"Before?" Bobby snaps, as expected, like this is something he should have shared with the class long before now.

Sam winces and nods, feeling like he's about to be sent to timeout, because Bobby may have a point here. They have an agreement here, that anything having to do with Dean or his wellbeing is something that is to be public knowledge. No secrets, not anymore, not when the guy's on the redeye. His grip on Dean's arm tightens, and there's no response from his brother; no indication he's hearing the conversation happening over his slack face.

"It started a few hours ago, around the time we got here. It was like I could, I dunno, sense that he was afraid. And then it happened again just before…" Sam sucks in a breath as a chill drops through him. The temperature outside leaking in through holes and gaps and cracks, he tells himself. Nothing more. "Or, I guess right before whatever happened here. He was nervous, and then he was in pain, and then…" Sam looks away, find a greasy stain on the toe of Dean's left boot to stare at. _And then there was nothing._ He relives the panic he'd felt himself, when that admittedly invasive but somewhat comforting presence in his mind he's come to identify as his brother was suddenly _gone._

"Okay," Bobby says quietly. He gives Sam a long, scrutinizing look, and his face falls into something a bit gentler as he takes in the state of the two of them. "Okay. Let's get the both of you somewhere a little warmer, huh? Make sure your idiot brother's brains ain't gonna fall out."

Sam shoots a glance to the cracked window over their heads, and hears the wind picking up again outside. "Yeah."

Yeah, they're pretty much screwed here, and maybe splitting up in the haunted resort wasn't the brightest idea any of them have ever had.

Bobby makes like he intends to take the majority of Dean's weight but Sam's not so willing to give him up, and gently jostles his brother until he manages to rouse a dissatisfied grunt from the man. Dean's eyes roll under his lids, but he doesn't open them fully. "Hey, man. We're gonna tackle the rest of the stairs now. One at a time, if that's okay with you."

He thinks Dean might rustle up the energy to call him a bitch. His lips don't actually move, but Sam hears the word in his head, all the same.

*************************************************************************

It's a short night and sleep eludes Sam, who's up with the sun; all are more or less par for the course. Rays of sunlight struggle through dense cloud cover above and grimy window below, and what manages to cut through does so in meager beams of dusty cool gray against dirty, damp concrete. These sparse pockets of daylight make the gutted hotel lobby feel marginally less creepy than it did the night before, but just as bleak and desolate. And cold. It's _damn_ cold, and silent, and there's no question that the three of them are alone here. Discounting at least one violent spirit, that is, who'd seen fit to make its presence known the night before but has been quiet since.

Their sleeping arrangements had been a bit more sardine-like than normal, but these aren't normal circumstances. Sam supposes that Bobby's plan made sense at the time of their arrival, to hole up in the abandoned hotel for the duration of this hunt, using the snowstorm and the privacy it would afford to prevent any further loss of innocent life, but that plan didn't account for this Winchester-specific brand of luck or the fact that supernatural entities have a tendency to treat his brother as a human volleyball.

The trunk of Bobby's car proved to be a bit like Mary Poppins' carpet bag, producing a portable propane heater and an eyebrow-raising number of vacuum-sealed meals. He and Sam had positioned the three sleeping bags in a triangular cluster in the center of the room, and laid a salt ring around the entire setup as a precaution. It took a while to properly relocate Dean, but there wasn't really a gentle or careful enough way to get him from the cemented landing of the main staircase to the spot, especially when the son of a bitch wasn't being even a little bit helpful.

Bobby had fussed and cleaned the wound in Dean's hair the best he could with what they have, and Sam had worried his lip over the relative silence in his head, coming to the conclusion that it's more than mere coincidence things are quiet in his head only when his brother is unconscious, but he hasn't again breached the subject with the older hunter. He knows how crazy it sounds. They took turns waking Dean throughout the remaining nighttime hours until he'd finally been aware enough to growl at them to leave him the hell alone and whack the back of a weak hand across Bobby's whiskered, wide-eyed face.

Sam had chuckled lightly, without letting Bobby in on the fact he'd known the hit was coming. And that's pretty much the thought that kept Sam from finding sleep during those few hours he was allowed to search for it. Dean's brief dabble with awareness had corresponded with a reemergence of the cacophonous roar in Sam's mind, what he can now properly identify as dueling emotions. His own, coinciding in full physical reactions, and some fainter, accompanying sense of his brother's that comes more as knowledge than any kind of experience. As said brother had drifted off again, the roar subsided, and Sam was left once more alone in his head.

Sam can similarly tell now that Dean's well and truly awake before Dean seems to know it for himself. Wincing in sympathy, he drops lightly next to where his brother is sprawled, where he slept sporadically but in remarkable stillness. Landing in a seated position atop his poufy navy sleeping bag, he watches Dean's eye roll under his lids a moment, then lowers the mug of coffee he has ready in hand, allowing the smell of the admittedly weak brew to rouse his brother more fully. Dean's nose predictably twitches as the steam from the hot liquid passes over his pale face.

"Morning, sunshine," Sam greets with put-upon cheeriness.

Dean groans and takes a moment to work his right arm free, extracting it from the warmer depths of his bag. He brings the heel of his hand up to his forehead without any apparent thought of pulling himself farther upright, or of even opening his eyes just yet. "Is it?"

Sam nods, frowning around the dull throb picking up in his head. He wonders vaguely if Dean's picked up on what's going on with them yet, then answers the question for himself. He swallows, averting his eyes to peer into the dark mug, as though that's going to dull the jackhammer in his temple. "That it is. How you feeling?" he asks, without really needing to.

"Million bucks." Dean's voice is rough, sloppy with sleep and probably some degree of concussion, but nothing worse than anything he's played through before.

Sam's head bobs. "Sure. You wanna play How Many Fingers?"

"How'd I do last time?"

"Well enough."

"Then let's skip it." Dean shifts his hand against his forehead, thumb and index finger digging into his temple. "Do I smell coffee?"

"Right here."

"S'it real?"

"It's really coffee, yes, if that's your question."

Dean finally cracks open an eye, lip curling at the steaming mug Sam has in hand. "Instant?"

Sam rolls his eyes, but can't help but crack a relieved smile. If Dean's feeling well enough to bitch about the quality of the coffee, he's feeling well enough. And that's something Sam had needed to see for himself. "No, Dean. Bobby and I dug our way out of the building and braved the treacherous road conditions to find a coffee shop, just for you."

Dean blinks at him. "Small words, Sammy."

"You want this or not?"

Dean growls in response and takes his sweet time in bringing himself up on one elbow, moving slow and deliberate and in a way that manages to pale him further. Head, rib, or some combination intensifying his grimace. But he's got both eyes open now, and accepts the mug, bringing it to his lips as his glassy eyes roam the large, empty lobby. "Where's Bobby?"

"Digging some more supplies out of the trunk."

"Digging?" Dean asks with raised eyebrows. He swallows and makes a face, sneering down at the weak, bitter coffee.

Sam nods seriously. "About three feet of snow's dropped since we got here, man. More on the way tonight, too. We're officially snowed in." He tears his eyes away from his brother's drawn face, squints into the bright windowpane to the right of the large stone mantle. When he looks back, a matching rectangle of red mars his field of vision, overlapping the rest of the room. "So no more stunt guy falls, okay?"

Dean's eyes twitch as his hand goes to the gash at the back of his head. He hisses a bit as he feels out the tender, scabbed-over spot.

Sam winces once more in sympathy. In _empathy._ "Yeah, you, uh, left some hair on one of the steps back there," he says, jerking his head in the direction of the staircase. "Also, everything you ate yesterday, I think."

"Ow," Dean says, finally dragging himself completely into a seated position, looking decidedly pained and holding the mug aloft so he doesn't end up with a lapful of hot coffee. He's actively avoiding direct eye contact with any of the unobstructed windows. Also, with Sam.

Sam snorts. "Yeah, that's about all you said last night. All I could make sense of, anyway." He draws his own legs up stiffly, draping his hands over his knees as he studies his brother, squints the watery smear of blood Dean's left behind on the balled-up jacket that had served as his pillow. "How about now? You remember what happened?"

"Ghost," Dean supplies, looking a little green and seemingly content with the one word answers for the time being. He kneads a knot in his neck, but Sam knows that's not going to do much for the headache.

"Figured as much." Sam gestures vaguely to the wide salt ring around the cluster of sleeping bags. "Doesn't seem like Bobby was able to turn up anything in the way of eye witness accounts, so sorry, man, but you're pretty much all we've got to work from right now. You get much of a look at it? Man, woman?"

"Saw it, but, no." Dean shakes his head gingerly and sets the mug aside after only one sip, having apparently decided the coffee wasn't quite as good an idea as he'd thought it would be. Sam could have told him as much, but knows better than to stand between the man and his caffeine. Dean drops his head into his hands, rubbing vigorously at his temples.

Sam slaps his thighs lightly, figuring they've stalled long enough. It's time for the harder question, the one that's going to require more than one word to answer properly. And for maybe the first time ever, he's positive that he's going to know whether or not Dean's lying, a brand new talent that would have been handy at any one of a dozen points over the last two and a half years. "All right. So then how about you tell me how I knew you were in trouble before I saw you? Got any theories about that?"

"Huh?" The sound is muffled through Dean's hands as he goes about buying some time, himself.

Sam knows better. He _knows._ "Don't play dumb with me, Dean. I know you know what I'm talking about."

Dean swallows and brings his head up, rubbing at his chin. "S'not just me then."

Sam shakes his head and sighs. "Not just you."

"Bobby?"

"Doesn't seem like it."

Dean's head bobs, and he returns his hand to the wound in back with a wince. The guy's just not capable of sitting _still_ , and never seems to know what to do with his hands. Sam had never before been able to properly recognize his constant fidgeting for the show of nervousness it is. "Probably not this ghost, then."

"Probably not, no."

"You tell 'im?"

Sam lifts a shoulder. "Sort of."

"What's he say?"

"He thinks it might be because of the crossroads deal." _YOUR crossroads deal,_ Sam means to say, but doesn't. It hurts enough to say the words at all, no need to drive that nail in any deeper.

"What?" Dean gapes, looking genuinely confused by this theory.

Sam doesn't get a chance to answer as the main door creaks and scrapes open. Bobby shuffles inside, red-faced and huffing and stomping heavy snow from his boots as he hauls a pair of overstuffed bags through the narrow opening.

*************************************************************************

_That'll wake you up in the morning,_ Bobby muses bitterly as another icy gust of wind stabs his cheeks. The snow has petered out for the time being, but it's still cold as balls out. He hurries to drag supplies from the trunk, stuffing first aid odds and ends and anything he's got that's looks the least like salt or iron into the spare bags. He's buried to his knees as he hunches over the ass-end of the car, and every movement he makes is sluggish from the increasing numbness spreading through his limbs, bogged down by the weight of the snow surrounding and clinging to him. It's taken on a mind of its own, frozen into chunks in the creases of his jeans and packed in the treads of his boot soles.

Blinded by the morning sun reflecting off of a seemingly never-ending blanket of brilliant white stretching in all directions, Bobby throws a tight glance at the glittering white hump nearby, the one that is the buried Impala. Sam had mentioned a few more blankets and spare sweatshirts that should be somewhere in the backseat or trunk compartment, but hadn't wanted to move an inch from his brother's side just yet, leaving all the manual labor to the duty of the elder he's supposed to be respecting. _That boy…_

After a night of short, light dozes, it had taken quite a bit off the reserves for Bobby to dig himself this far, and he's not sure he's got enough juice left to paw a door of that beast of a Chevy free as well. This was supposed to be a quick job and a foot of powder – tops – and he hadn't anticipated needing to put together a triage station in the middle of a goddamn blizzard. But these boys are accident-prone at best, cursed at worst, and either way it seems as though he's always washing Winchester blood from his hands.

Of course, he doesn't think Dean's accident was exactly that, seeing as how they're here for a rowdy though yet-to-be-identified ghost who'd taken two lives that they know about. Could easily be more. The kid had bled a little, enough to spook his brother but not nearly enough to be of serious concern. He'd cleaned up okay, and he'll have a headache and might go tripping over his own feet a few times, but he's stubborn and tough and they'll make do with what they can for the time being.

With a weary, resigned sigh, Bobby loops his arms through the straps of the large duffel and forces the trunk closed. "Don't call it roughin' it for nothin,' boys," he huffs out, breath clouding in front of his face, and turns back to the façade of the hotel, rising ominously out of the untouched snow, all shabby-looking with sharp, bricked angles and climbing, dried-out ivy. He propels his numb legs forward through the narrow path he'd carved on his way out of the building, the additional weight of his bags pressing his boots deeper into the snowdrifts.

It takes some effort to work the heavy door open, but it finally drags outward with a _creak_ and a _swish_ , the cracked wood along the bottom scraping against the icy sheet of snow he'd flattened on his way out. Bobby stomps inside, tamping the snow from his boots and shaking it from his clothing as he drags the door closed behind him. "Not fit for man'r beast out there," he grumbles, raising his eyes to the dim gray lobby, to those two idiot boys huddled conspiratorially around the propane heater in the center of the room.

Their heads whip over as Bobby stomps inside, pale, wide-eyed faces looking so much like when they were young boys and he'd catch them with their grubby little hands inches away from one of the weapons John had expressly ordered they not touch.

"Am I interrupting something?" Bobby inquires gruffly, dragging thick woolen gloves from his still-numb fingers.

They shake their head in tandem, and Dean goes immediately whiter – if such a thing is possible – and drops his into one hand, the other pressing his side with a sharp intake of breath. Bobby turns his gaze to Sam, locking onto those wide, worried eyes. "Then can an old man get a hand here?"

Sam leaps so quickly to his feet he gets those giraffe legs tangled in the fabric of his sleeping bag and pitches forward, catching himself on his palms against the damp concrete floor before he cracks his head open just like his brother.

That's all the Bobby needs; the _both_ of them swaying drunkenly as they hunt this damn thing. Mighta been better, he didn't call 'em at all. Not the first time he's had that thought, and not likely to be the last.

Sam shoves himself back to his feet with about as much dignity as one could be expected to have in such circumstances, and crosses the lobby quickly to collect the bags. "Whatcha got in here, Bobby?" he asks, somewhat shakily as he struggles to hoist the straining straps. "Bricks?"

"Yeah, cuz I thought I might need to replace the ones in your brother's thick skull," Bobby snipes, but with a good-natured eye roll. He lowers himself slowly and stiffly to the bag Sam had just vacated, holding his red hands out in front of the heater to thaw. He uses the cover of the motion to assess Dean, who's at least thankfully conscious this morning.

He looks like crap warmed in a microwave but he's always thinking of anyone but himself, and he immediately produces a mug from next to his leg, holds out to Bobby without even really looking at him.

Bobby accepts the offer gratefully and takes a sip. The coffee tastes like watery motor oil and is cooling quickly but it holds enough heat to warm him from mouth to belly, and the cup feels like a wonderful ball of fire in his cold hands. He doesn't even need to drink it, just wants to hold it for a minute. "How you feelin,' kid?"

"Fine," Dean says quickly, true to form. He looks like he's got a killer headache, and even more like he's going to hate every bit of being vertical here when Sam inevitably decides enough's enough and hauls him to his feet. Because it's not gonna matter much how shitty his brother looks; Sam does things on his terms, and damn, if that boy doesn't like everyone to be walking the same line.

Bobby cocks his head, can't help but feel a flush of affection for the piss-poor liar. "So then you remember hittin' me in the face?" he asks, using the cover of the mug to let a smile slip out.

Dean wets his bottom lip, can't seem to decide on what the right answer is. Whether he should admit to some chunk of memory missing or cop to knowingly whacking Bobby across the jaw. "No?"

Bobby nods with a low chuckle. "Yeah, you just keep tellin' that story."

Sam's pacing behind his brother, and there's a worrisome look there to match the one dropping across his brother's features. Bobby's eyes drift back and forth between them, making several circuits while he allows his body to warm up a bit.

By the time his fingers have stopped their icy tingling, he's contented himself with the fact that they aren't worried about him so much as they are something he's not yet been made aware of. And here, Bobby'd thought he'd already done all the digging he needed to. He settles his gaze on Sam, because the two of them are supposed to have an understanding as far as sharing information is concerned, and that boy cracks like the spine of a brand new hardback when the topic of conversation is his big brother.

Bobby takes another long, noisy sip of coffee, drawing the attention of both boys. "What is it?"

"Hmm?" Sam hums, somewhat dingily.

Even Dean rolls his eyes. "Thought you said you told him." He keeps one hand on his head, and damn, but that boy sounds just about done. Has for quite a while now, come to think of it.

"Told me what?"

*****************************************************************************

_To be continued..._


	5. Chapter 5

The silence that has dropped over the lobby is an unnerving one, because he's clearly on the outs of something here, lacking on the information front, and the quiet seems to cause the enormous room to feel even colder. A frigid wind audibly howls outside, beating against the thin boards of plywood covering missing windowpanes, and Bobby can near as feel it seeping into his bones.

"Told me what?" he repeats, shattering the silence and allowing a bit of sternness to harden his voice, the tone known to put these boys' spines straight when they're slouching and get answers when they're dead-set on being that special kind of coordinated quiet that had always infuriated their father.

His eyes go back and forth between Sam and Dean, searching out the familiar tells in their facial cues. Sam's jumping eyebrows or Dean's phantom itches, because Lord knows how these two are hard-wired to protect and lie for each other, and what comes next should be taken with a damned _silo_ of salt, if it's anything halfway serious enough to merit this degree of hesitance.

With a put-upon sigh Dean takes the lead, as is more or less to be expected, especially when Bobby takes this tone of voice. "'Bout this weird-ass…thing that's goin' on with us." He waves a vague hand around, then presses briefly against his side before dropping it into his lap like it weighs a ton.

"That's specific." Sam shakes his head, mouth slack in exaggerated disbelief. "No, really, well-put. I'm glad you've taken it upon yourself to be the spokesperson of the family," he chastises his brother, though it's said lightly, and seems equal parts good-natured ribbing and concern. All rounded out with a dollop of that general bit of exasperation the kid always seems to have, a John Winchester-inherited defect of an otherwise mostly pleasant personality. The pleasantness must've come from his mother.

Bobby tilts his head back, pausing to draw in another mouthful of coffee before it goes too cold to both drink and keep down. Sam had mentioned something the night before, true, about sensing a fear of some kind in the hotel, and he'd settled in his mind that it was coming from his brother. Was real convinced of it, too, but Bobby had mostly written it off as a guilty conscience, as understandable panic that maybe Hell had come and rung the doorbell a little early to collect what it was owed. He'd be lying if he said he hadn't felt a bit of that panic, himself, running up on Sam cradling his limp and bloody brother.

Truth be told, he froze, not that Sam noticed or, hell, even saw Bobby coming up on the both of them there on the steps. Losing John, well, they all knew that was coming. It was only a matter of time and the question of when, where, and how. But that's not supposed to be the end of the line for these boys. Not these boys. Not his boys.

Cold Oak. That's what it had felt like, seeing Sam and Dean, one of them limp and unmoving, and just enough blood to catch sight of from a distance. That dark, rainy night and nightmare come true. It's coming down to the wire here, and they've yet to find a way to keep the hounds at bay. Bobby knows he's not on the main stage in this production, but he also doesn't think he can do it again. And Sam…what broke Dean will _shatter_ Sam. There won't be pieces big enough to put back together into a person.

But whatever this is happening now, they're _both_ experiencing it, and that certainly warrants some level of further investigation. Bobby scrutinizes the boys for a moment, makes eye contact with Sam and jerks his head meaningfully at Dean. "All right, Sam. Whatcha got?"

"Seriously?" Sam scoffs a bit at being put on the spot. He sighs, shaking his head. "I don't know." He turns to regard his brother, who's swaying slightly from his seated position across from Bobby.

Dean squirms under the scrutiny and is working very hard to keep his own gaze pointed at the floor, like that's somehow going to protect whatever darkness he's hiding inside. He sniffs, scratches the back of his head, winces.

Bobby, strange enough, can tell that Sam _does_ know. That they both do, and he doesn't need any special psychic connection for that, just the shifty body language and the dumb, guilty looks on their faces. _The hell you two idjits get into now?_

"You're annoyed," Sam offers the back of Dean's head, somewhat half-assedly, and lifting a shoulder under the pretense this is boring him as opposed to freaking him out. "And…maybe hungry."

Dean takes a moment, then reluctantly nods. The group falls into an uncomfortable, somewhat embarrassed silence. The portable camping heater hisses between them and fills the space with a vaguely gassy smell, and somewhere behind them, another chunk of rotting roof beam collapses under the weight of piled snow up top and thumps to the floor.

"Well," Bobby says finally, the word echoing harshly off of the plain, stripped walls of the lobby. He slaps his bent knees with both hands, and the _smack_ of the motion follows in a second rebound around the room. "I wouldn't go takin' this show of yours on the road just yet." He looks up at Sam and forces a crooked grin, though he's not particularly amused. "He's damn near always annoyed and hungry."

"It's real, Bobby, and I don't like him in my head," Dean says, his voice loud, but tight and rough. Strained. As though this could be the thing that's just one thing too many. "I mean, I don't even really like _me_ in my head."

"Oh, and you think _I_ like this?" Sam returns loudly, face turning a shade of red that isn't from the prevailing cold but from something hotter rising inside, because that's his instinctual response and he doesn't quite know how _not_ to be angry. Not just yet.

"Yeah, Sam, I kinda do," Dean snaps back as he whirls from his seated position. He's been growing more and more short-tempered as the days run out, like he's finally realized there's not much to be gained from not speaking your piece. Learning his lessons a bit too late, just like his daddy. His jaw clenches against the pain the twist causes in his ribs, and his eyes are bright in a too-pale face. "You're always wanting me to talk about every goddamn thing and look, all of a sudden I don't even need to."

"You're saying you think I had something to do with this?" Louder still, Sam's voice rising in pitch as his feathers are ruffled just a bit more.

But Bobby doesn't move to intervene. He knows these two well enough to know they'll say just enough to say what needs said before backing off, and that will be that.

Dean turns back to Bobby and his head drops once more into his hands like he just can't hold it up any longer. "Calm down, Sammy, for the love of God," he groans. "Of course I don't think you did this. This is…it's just a…" He gives up and looks up at Bobby, eyes watery and squinty, his plate perhaps well and truly run over. "And you haven't been…"

"Havin' visions of gumdrops and whatever the hell else it is you two screwballs've got goin' on in those thick skulls?" Bobby's words and tone are much lighter than the weight he feels in his heart, and his fingers twitch for a glass of whiskey between them, regardless of the time of day. "No."

"You ever hear of a ghost doin' somethin' like this?" Dean, unsatisfied, presses.

Bobby shakes his head slowly. He'll consider all of the available options, as he always does, but that's one idea he's sure they can throw out easily enough. "Never. I don't think it's the ghost."

"What?" Dean doesn't seem to like that answer, frustration straightening his spine as he draws himself up. Almost seems like he was banking on the answer being something as simple as that, doesn't want to consider the fact it could be something that digs a bit deeper. "Why?"

Bobby recoils a bit. _Because I said so, and I've been doing this a helluva lot longer than you._ No one questions his intel or opinion quite like a Winchester, but he bites down on the retort. "Because all of my research says this is just your garden variety poltergeist. Deaths have been random, happenstance, and the victims were isolated, not connected in any way I can drum up." Bobby throws a hand to wave between the two boys. "Whatever this is, it seems to be very specifically about the two of you."

Sam crosses his arms and raises his eyebrows, taps an impatient foot against the floor. "Meaning what?"

"Meaning some kinda curse, I'd wager," Bobby says, mostly thinking out loud. That's pretty much all he _can_ do, without any of his books or research materials. They've had the benefit of some spotty internet access on Sam's phone, but he trusts his own information cache more than anything they'd pull from that clusterfuck of mishandled and mistranslated information. "If you're sure it's nothin' to do with that crossroads deal." He can't help falling back on his first instinct, can't help feeling that little bit of inherited self-sacrificing is what keeps landing these two in all manner of shit.

"It's not because of the damn deal, Bobby," Dean exclaims, throwing out his hands. He immediately pulls the left back to brace his sore side, makes up for the dip of strength with his sniping tone. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

Still planted behind the mouthy jackass, Sam jerks his chin pointedly at the back of Dean's head and mouths the word 'annoyed,' like this little outburst proves the validity of his previous read on his brother.

Bobby narrows his eyes at Dean. A little aggravation is bringing some color back to his pasty complexion, and that's good to see, so it's with a soft scold that he says, "I'm gonna chock that little fit up to the concussion."

"I don't have a – "

"You ain't dead just yet, boy, and maybe it's best you say that you do," Bobby continues evenly.

Dean blinks stupidly at him, and Sam nudges him in the back with his knee. Dean whirls fast enough, smacks his brother in the leg before Sam can get out of the line of fire, so at least they've managed to establish that he's gettin' to feeling a bit better.

"Now," Bobby continues, "if you're so damn sure it's got nothin' to do with your deal, then that brings me back around a curse of some kind."

"Well, that's just great." Dean's head bobs with sarcastic enthusiasm. "Like I'm not screwed enough."

"Hey," Bobby barks. "Both of you numbskulls are gonna need to keep cool heads while we figure this out."

"I'm cool," Dean says, though his posture would suggest otherwise. He might be on the slow train back to true form but his shoulders are still held too high and tense, and the lines around his eyes would suggest the raging headache that is more or less to be expected on the heels of the kind of fall he took.

Sam shoots him a glare that brings Dean kneading at his right temple. "Yeah, you're a cucumber."

"Huh?"

"Nothing."

"You know, you don't have to say anything to be a dick, Sam. I can tell."

"So can I, yet you seem to feel the need to go ahead and say it anyway."

_Better get this shit straightened out before they kill each other,_ Bobby realizes, mouth twisting grimly. "Both of you, knock it off!" He comes to his feet as quickly as he and his stiff, frozen joints can manage, drawing the full, wide-eyed attention of them both. "Look, we're stuck here, least til the storm blows completely over. And there's still the matter of a ghost somewhere in this hotel who doesn't seem to have a problem poppin' out and shoutin' boo. So maybe it's for the best if you boys split up for a – "

"No," Sam refuses outright, sternly, shaking his head tightly.

Dean is slower to respond, but nods a hesitant agreement. "We can handle it."

Bobby sighs, but can't say he expected anything less. "I think you'll both be singin' a different tune, we don't get this mess cleaned up soon."

***************************************************************************

There's a decent chance Bobby's right, but Sam doesn't think he'll be singing any sort of tune for a good long while. At least not while he's fighting this persistent pounding in his head that is just about as annoying on the inside of his skull as Dean insists on being on the outside.

His brother has an obvious tendency to internalize, to zip his lips when he's dealing with discomfort of any kind, be it a compound fracture or some less evident but no less painful form of mental torture, usually brought about all on his own, but Dean can't seem to shut up about this particular intrusion of his mind. In fact, he'd been vocal to the point Sam is starting to get seriously concerned that he and Bobby may have been a bit hasty in their joint examination and glazed over a few of the proper concussion protocols the night before. When they agreed that while Dean might not be entirely _fine_ , he was certainly _Dean-fine_ , and made their peace with the fact he was bullheaded enough to not allow himself to be taken down by an elusive spirit and half a staircase.

Maybe Dean has just accepted – albeit a bit too easily to be completely within character – that there isn't much to be gained by internalizing at this point. If they aren't safe with their feelings within their own minds, then there isn't much point in continuing to stubbornly hide things from one another. Or maybe he's trying, as would be much more understandable and believable, to deflect. To throw Sam off the scent of what's really going on in his head. Because that's just gotta be a genuine horror show.

"I'm fine, Sam," Dean grits through clenched teeth as he stomps back into the lobby with enough force to bounce ceiling bits from where they've fallen in jagged wooden chunks to the floor. He's cutting a frustrated path towards them while cramming his arms back into the sleeves of his dusty coat, having already dragged on a new and mostly-clean shirt from his bag. He'd been complaining of the blood-stiffened collar irritating his neck, as though that's the worst part of what happened last night. At least he's up and moving around, and at least it had been a blessed few minutes in which he wasn't complaining about _Sam._

"I didn't say you weren't," Sam says, frowning. "In fact, I didn't say anything." _Did I?_ he second-guesses himself after a moment, looking across the wide room to Bobby for confirmation.

The man shakes his head but doesn't speak. He's leaning against the stone wall framing the fireplace, arms crossed with false casualness. Bobby hasn't moved or spoken in quite some time, and his posture is tense, face tight and lined as he watches the two of them, much like he's studying caged animals who are interacting for the first time.

To be fair, they're not catching Dean on his best day, here. Not between the second knock on the head he's managed this week and the fact he didn't get nearly enough coffee to meet his required daily amount of caffeine for proper interaction with other humans. Best thing he's got going for him is that he's not going to have to put up with this newest scar for very long.

_Ouch._ Sam, himself, is sent reeling by the morbid thought. It comes from so far out of left field, he's not entirely convinced the thought is actually his, and sets his troubled eyes searching his brother's face. The man can try all he wants to force his features to smooth into a passive and mostly unreadable canvas, but lucky for Sam, he's got the cheat codes for breaking through that wall. "Dean, we're gonna fix this."

Dean gives up the charade pretty quickly after that, as he crams his soiled, balled-up button-down into his bag and chucks the entire duffel to smack to the floor, just in case his frustration wasn't evident enough. "We don't even know what the hell this is, Sam, so don't tell me we're gonna fix it."

Sam frowns. "No, I mean…the…" He means well, but has a hard time with the words.

"What? Spit it out, Boy Wonder." Dean's eyes narrow, then widen as something in his mind unwittingly syncs with Sam's. "You're talking about the deal? About _my_ deal?"

Sam feels each individual hit Dean takes for himself as he says those words. He doesn't want to respond, but he also doesn't _have_ to.

Dean levels a stare that doesn't match the persistent fear and pain Sam knows his brother is feeling. "Sam, I can't say this enough. Apparently. This was my decision, and I don't…" Dean breaks off and turns away, finds Bobby against the wall and throws a hand back toward Sam. "Bobby, can I get some help here?"

Bobby shakes his head, squints beneath the shadow of his trucker hat. "Sorry, kid. Gotta say, I'm on Sam's side of the fence, here."

"Thank you," Dean snaps, rolling his eyes.

A sharp line of fire rips through Sam's skull, from one temple to the other. He grunts and doubles over, brings a hand instinctively to the side of his head. In his periphery, he sees Bobby come away from the wall and senses Dean drawing nearer, feels his patented mix of panic and concern growing in intensity more than he views his brother approach.

Dean's hand drops heavy and cool on Sam's shoulder. And almost like the physical contact counteracts the emotional one, the pain in his head quickly subsides, leaving him feeling a bit foolish, but otherwise fine.

Dean's smiling when Sam straightens, but the look is grim, tight. Utterly false. He's always known Dean was good, but he'd never realized just how often his brother's expression doesn't match his feelings until those feelings were being jammed into his own head. "Good?"

Sam nods, and gives it a shot, one-upping his brother's lackluster acting prowess. "Yeah," he says tightly. "Good."

**********************************************************************

Sam's not good. He's not anywhere close to good. He's in a different _area code_ from good.

Sam's an angry guy. That's not exactly breaking news; Dean grew up with the kid, and he's pretty sure Sammy broke the hinges of more doors than your average moody adolescent. Sam's always had an attitude that packs a wallop, but Dean hadn't ever realized that anger is less reaction and more a personality mainstay. The anger he senses from his brother is on a constant low-burn, seemingly unexplainable and impossible to ignore.

This whole whack-a-do mind melding thing certainly can't be helping that situation any. Dean likes his thoughts and feelings best when they're his, when they're locked up tight in his mental safe that doesn't have a key or code to break. His brother's getting a peek behind the curtain, and there's no telling what he's going to see to set him off, but it seems like an unavoidable hazard of being a perpetually screwed Winchester.

"What are we gonna do about this, Bobby?" Dean asks, rotating to face the older hunter. The answer man. "I mean, I know you guys want me to open up a little more but we can't just…stay like this." Something about what he's just said slaps Dean across the face, and he turns his attention back to his brother, fingers gripping the fabric of his jacket. "Sam, you're sure you didn't…"

"No, Dean. God." Sam turns under his hand, levels a glare. "Is there anything you think I _won't_ do?"

Dean raises his hands, the flush of heat rising in his pounding skull. _Found a sore spot._ "Okay, cool your jets, Sasquatch. Had to ask."

"No, actually, you didn't."

Dean claps his brother on the back before he moves away, maybe a bit rougher than needed, just to put that period firmly on the thought. Just to make sure Sammy knows, _you're not shittin' me, either, little brother._ He straightens, eyes going to the staircase across the lobby, where he'd apparently taken his little tumble, and redirects his focus on the ghost. On the job, because that's what he had wanted, and that's what he needs, and if there's ever going to be a time Sammy's going to give him what he needs, it's gotta be now.

His eyes slide back to his little brother, who still looks a bit pinched, like he's got a whole damn lemon slice in his mouth, but something passes between them unspoken but certainly felt, and Sam nods tightly, communicating, _do the job._

_Thanks, Sammy._

And then Dean throws his attention back to the staircase, where he'd apparently been attacked.

_Apparently,_ because Bobby's right, and Dean's missing some time there, though he hates to admit it. He remembers seeing something, then very much _feeling_ something, and then Sam and his nosy, giant-ass hands but couldn't for a million bucks confirm that's the scene of the night's action.

Dean frowns, forcing the angry yet still concerned bits of Sam in his head to the back burner, and downshifts into work-mode. "Either of you geniuses check for EMF this morning?"

Sam scowls, and Dean knows he's not thrilled about them pushing this mind-meld thing to the side for the time being. The resonating thrum of Sam's irritation through Dean's already-rung skull kinda takes away the need for interpretation out of his brother's facial expressions.

Bobby's missed the entire exchange save Dean's smartass comment, and he chuffs a laugh. "No, because this's our first damn job."

"Doesn't hurt to ask." But it does. _God,_ it does. It hurts Dean to ignore, and it hurts Sam to be ignored. For the briefest of moments, their pain aligns, but then it's right down to business. Dean swallows, turns to Bobby. "What's our next play here?"

"Thought you'd never ask." Bobby seems more than happy to distract them, withdraws the blueprints for the hotel from a vest pocket as he crosses the room to meet them in the middle. The thin paper whooshes and flaps as he stoops and flattens it against the dirty floor, and he holds the floorplan in place with a few chunky pieces of found ceiling rubble on the four corners.

Sam, ever the curious cat, seems properly distracted as he crouches and leans over the plans. Bobby pulls out a thick marker and makes a few spots on the map, but he may as well have waved something loud and shiny in front of the kid's face.

Dean smiles, tired, amused and affectionate, then turns his own attention to the map, crossing his arms across his chest to keep from sending cold fingers to explore the gash in the back of his head that feels like the Grand fuckin' Canyon. Bobby's marker hastily eliminates the various corridors they've already searched with wide slashes before drawing a circle around the staircase.

Bobby shifts, and his knees give a protesting creak. He taps the map. "Mighta been a long shot, even checking the upstairs for remains, but I think we've safely ruled out most of the second and third – "

"I saw something else," Dean speaks up, staring at one of the thick black slashes drawn across an upstairs hallway. He squints as he forces the memory to the front of his mind. "Or, something _somewhere_ else…" It's escaping him, and suddenly Sam's got him by the elbow, a steadying force. The effort of trying to recollect the encounter had left him lightheaded enough, he'd nearly sent himself to the floor. _Son of a bitch._

Sam and Bobby shoot him a look in tandem, the same small, frightened glance they both keep throwing Dean, like they're half-expecting to see his brains leaking out of his ears. And with the way his head is pulsing and pounding, it's maybe not too far off being a possibility.

"Hey, easy with the heavy thinking," Sam jokes weakly, once Dean has shaken him off the way he's expected to. "We get that you got a face full of ghost last night, man. You don't need to go reenacting it for us."

Dean persists, crouching to rest a finger on one of the upstairs hallways. There's something there…blood, maybe. And, a teddy bear? _That can't be right._ "I saw it here," he says, confidently now, punctuating his statement with a double-tap against the map. "Before, you know…" He figures they've all taken enough hits without him needing to say it. Like Sammy said, he left some hair on one of the steps.

Sam shoots him a strange look, but Bobby just moves his marker to circle the area he'd previously eliminated as needing to be scouted further. The hunter mumbles to himself as he puts together the path of the day's search.

He thought he'd gotten something of a handle on this thing, and so it takes a while for Dean to realize the blood rushing in his head isn't actually blood, it's _Sam._

_Dammit, Sammy_ , he complains silently, _Stay on your side._

Sam shoots him a strange look, left eyebrow disappearing somewhere into the depths of the shag atop his giant head. "What?"

"What?" Dean returns immediately.

Bobby's wide eyes dart between them. "I miss somethin'?"

The roaring picks up in volume and intensity, bringing about a ringing in Dean's ears, and a thump behind his eyes that makes him think he just might be concussed. There's the anger, so low and steady and even, he has to wonder if Sam himself knows of its constant presence. Because there's worry slathered over the top, to a suffocating degree. _Dammit, Sammy,_ Dean pleads, the heel of his hand grinding into his temple.

Sam, of course, senses the pain, just not the fact that he's the cause of it. He steps toward Dean, eyebrows pulled together nearly into a single thick line across the front of his thicker skull. "Hey, man you all right?"

"Just…" Dean's eyes desperately roam the room helplessly before he finally points to a far corner, dark with shadows cast from the large mantle spanning the stone fireplace. "Go stand over there."

Sam, surprisingly enough, doesn't put up a fight but obliges, traversing the distance with long steps. When he's planted in his designated corner he holds his arms out. _Better?_

Bobby's caught on by now – not that they're by any means being subtle – and pulls upright with a wince, as quickly as his battle-tested joints will allow. He raises his eyebrows. "That help any?"

"Maybe," Sam says, ever the optimist, as Dean groans a miserable, "No," that has to sound as bad as this feels.

Bobby looks to Sam, and he sighs. "Yeah, no," he admits, a bit dejectedly. "It doesn't help."

Bobby takes a moment to ponder on that, his eyes narrowing as he determines their course of action. "Can't leave you two like this for much longer, that's for damn sure. One of you is likely to rip the other's head off."

"Can't leave the ghost here killin' people, either," Dean argues.

"Nice to see where your priorities are, Dean," Sam snaps, having already kept his retorts to himself to the point they're bubbling over.

_You're alive because of where my priorities are, bitch, so I'd back up a step._ Dean bites the words back, but Sam recoils the same as if he'd said them. There's no talking himself out of this one, so he doesn't even bother trying.

******************************************************************************

After a slow morning start, it's become clear that Dean is going to be fine. He's been feisty and on the mend, and putting up a hell of a fight against this veritable mind-fuck, but more than anything else, fine, at least physically-speaking.

This comes as a relief, but not as much of a surprise, because Dean is always fine. Sam had grown up thinking of his father as bulletproof, but it's his brother who's proven to be the truly resilient one, the one who smashes through brick walls and bounces back good-as-new from the hits that others wouldn't think of getting up from.

_Except that one time._

Sam is forced to remind himself of _that one time_ almost daily, every time his mind strays and he's awed all over again by the sheer strength of his big brother. It always comes back to that one time. They wouldn't even be here in this position, not without that one time.

And not without that first deal, the one Dad offered Azazel.

Without that deal, Dean never would have thought to offer his own soul. Never would have traded his life for Sam's, not without the knowledge that his life was a tradeable, barterable thing.

It had been a morbid but educated guess, the best possible reasoning as to how Dean woke so suddenly after doctors told Sam it wasn't likely he'd ever talk to his brother again. The crossroads demon Dean trapped cleared away the guess part, confirmed what they'd both dreaded to be true, and opened a brand new avenue for their trend of self-sacrificing.

And without that one time, without that one deal…they wouldn't be here, staring into the mouth of Hell and waiting for it to bite.

But without that one time, Sam wouldn't even have had his brother this long, would he?

As it is, Sam doesn't have his brother for very much longer, and he can't stop thinking about how he's about to lose him.

But Sam does have him for now, and Dean is a little pale, and keeps scratching at the scab in the back of his head, but he's fine. Physically, anyway, he's fine.

And so the worry he's been forcing on top of everything else, it starts to flow out of Sam, like a river rushing unimpeded to empty out into the ocean. He'd been relying on that worry, had been using it to dull the edges of everything else he's grown used to feeling under the constant presence of his brother as these months are wearing away. As the clock's running down. Everything else he's now powerless to keep Dean from sensing.

Dean's not _saving_ him. Dean's _leaving_ him.

And Sam tries and tries but he can't keep that thought out. Can't argue that logic, and can't fight the resentment that clings to the thought like a shrieking toddler…that _anger_ that's been growing and festering on the heels of the resentment. He doesn't want it, and he didn't intend for any of it…but that doesn't mean he can stop it.

So he starts talking as they traverse these cold, empty hallways, a solid group of three fighting not to show weakness through frigid shivering as they search for remains of a spirit that needs very badly to be put to rest. He chatters at uncharacteristic length and speed, and he laughs nervously at odd breaks in conversation, drawing strange looks from both Dean and Bobby.

"Are you sure I'm the only one who hit my head?" Dean finally deadpans, but there are creases of stress and pain at the corners of his eyes, and pangs of the same stampeding through Sam's head.

Bobby doesn't see it, doesn't _feel_ it, and he just chuckles. Just laughs it off and keeps walking.

Sam can't deal with that, not the joke and not the stress and not the pain. Not the fact Bobby can't see what is so damn clear to him, and he looses a strange high-pitched cackle in response, a sound that's strange and unnatural, because maybe he is really is doing little more than straddling the fence between _hanging on_ and _cracking the fuck up._

"What are you talking about? I'm fine?" Sam grins and throws out an elbow, bumps Dean with enough accidental force to send his already off-balance brother stumbling into a wall. "Shit, man, my bad." Each word rings falser than the one before, and the confusion in Sam's head is only mostly his own.

Dean straightens wordlessly, brushing plaster dust and cobwebs from the sleeve of his jacket with his flashlight hand. He seems extremely intent on something the floor is doing, and Sam finds himself leaning forward, squinting, trying to get a read, but it's becoming harder and harder to discern any one emotion, let alone know whose is whose.

"Boy, you really are special, ain't ya?" Bobby comments. He, as always, appears equally concerned and amused, those emotions split between the both of them, though Sam's always wondered about the ratio.

Dean doesn't appear to be either concerned or amused at the moment, but he's clearly working on something. He chews his lower lip, eyes darting all over, everywhere except Sam. "Hey, Bobby," he says suddenly. "You mind givin' us a few minutes?"

Bobby's a different sort of sentimental, but he's just as prone as Sam to giving Dean whatever the hell he asks for. He and Sam have bonded a bit over this combined trauma of Dean's looming Hell sentence, but his brother has always been the man's favorite, since they were kids. He kindly bobs his head at Dean as he moves down the corridor, eyes skimming sympathetically over Sam's face as he passes. At least, Sam thinks it's sympathy. It's hard to know what it is Bobby's thinking exactly, since the man doesn't have a manual the way Dean now does.

Dean stays there, almost pressed against the dirty wall, almost like he needs the support, or maybe like he just wants to stay as far away from Sam as he can get in this narrow hallway. He watches Bobby's light bob and weave down the dark passageway until it disappears entirely around a corner.

Sam swallows, and right on cue, a muscle in Dean's jaw visibly jumps. He jerks his head, like he's trying to fling a thought from his very mind. Like he's trying to fling _Sam_ from his mind.

"What is it?" Sam asks hesitantly, worried that he already knows what Dean's managed to ferret out.

"Sam, you…uh. You…" Dean's eyes screw up as he works to process whatever it is that's flashing through his mind. He's fought it tooth and nail, but the previous night's knock to the head seems to be catching up with him, causing him some trouble in coming up with what exactly it is he's trying to say; a crease appears and deepens between his brows as he exhales a frustrated breath in the form of a hot cloud in the otherwise cold air.

Sam tries to clear his mind, but fails. Tries to cling to the guilt of the moment, or at the very least bring forth the morning's worry, or the previous night's panic. Anything but the resentment. But he's been angry for so long, about so much, that it's hard to wash his mind and body of it completely. When Dean latches onto to it, Sam can _feel_ the intrusion, and already knowing what's coming, all he can do it wait for Dean to take stock and assemble all of the pieces.

Dean rocks back a step, finds that wall at his back and is forced to finally meet Sam's eyes with a wounded, betrayed expression that completely matches the strange, offended twinge flaring suddenly in the back of Sam's own mind. "You're mad at me?"

There's no point in denying it, as his brother would immediately know that he was lying. But if Dean forces this conversation to happen, neither of them is likely to enjoy the outcome. It's hopeless, even as Sam weakly protests, "Dean – "

"For the deal, for saving you…you're mad at me?"

"Dean, don't – "

His brother's face hardens, and what lies beneath only serves to dial up the anger Sam's already got there, just biding its time. "How the hell can you be _mad_ at me, Sammy?"

"Of course I'm mad at you, Dean!" Sam explodes, because Dean's not the only one with a clock ticking down to Go Time. "Do you have any idea what I've been living with? What it feels like to know that…" He stops, because Dean _does_ know how it feels to have someone pull you out of line and take your place on death row, and there's more than enough on the Winchester angst plate without bringing Dad verbally into the equation. He's always there, and his deal with Azazel is always there, whether it's spoken of or not.

Sam tries to bite his lip, but the words seem to be stronger than his will. "It's just…not a great situation to be in, you know? And it's not like I had any choice in the matter." It's the closest he's come to throwing any kind of accusation at his brother. And now that he's gotten going, he can't seem to put a stopper back on the flow of them pouring out, like heat-seeking missiles all programmed to hit Dean. "You did this without my knowledge and without my consent. You can't play with people's lives like this, Dean."

Dean steps forward like he might throw a punch. Sam knows he won't, doesn't budge. "The only life I _played with_ is mine."

Sam shakes his head forcefully, and somehow enjoys a pocket of clarity, a moment of solitude in his own mind, and he grits out, "I can't believe you ever had the nerve to call me selfish."

Dean runs a hand down his face and sighs with such heavy exasperation, Sam can feel it thrum behind his eyeballs. "Come on, Sam. You'd've done the same for me."

And on the heels of his brother's exasperation is an unwavering sureness. A sense of such fierceness of certainly radiating second-hand through Sam's mind that he's forced to drop his gaze guiltily to the floor without saying anything.

He forgets, for just a second, that he doesn't have to.

Dean's eyes widen just slightly, and he rocks back a step like he's been physically struck. He takes a couple of long strides down the hall, down the way Bobby disappeared. Puts some pointless distance between them before he turns back. "Wait, wait…you, uh, you wouldn't have. Would you?"

"Dean…"

"You would've let me die. Or, whatever, stay dead." Dean stabs at Sam with his flashlight. "You wouldn't have made the deal I made for you, that's for sure."

It's futile to lie here, so Sam shrugs his shoulders helplessly. "I don't know."

But Dean is at least as stubborn as he so frequently accuses Sam of being, and like a dog with a bone, is looking to make his brother say something that can't do anything to help the situation. He shakes his head with some version of his trademark cocky-ass grin stretching across his face, but there's not anything approaching humor tugging at his lips or his intention. "You wouldn't have."

"I don't _know_ , Dean, okay. Okay? There's no way to know for sure." He found the faith healer, sure, but Dean's heart was cured of any defect at no cost to Sam, himself. If Sam had been told that _he_ was the one who would have needed to take Dean's place on the chopping block…he just can't say for sure that he would've made the same play his big brother did. Not in that moment, not with Dad missing and Jessica's killer unrevenged.

Dean leans his head back, scrutinizing his brother. "No, you know. Hey, it's cool, Sam, I get it. It's not like it was an easy decision to make." He holds up a hand, and the sarcasm coming curls Sam's lip before Dean even speaks again. "No, wait. It was."

"Yeah, because it was a decision that took _your_ pain away." Sam feels his nostrils flare, the flush of heat on the back of his neck as he takes a step forward. Dean frowns and steps backward to match, and Sam doesn't know if it's due to the look on his face or the fact his selfish, dumbass brother can sense just how angry he's getting. "Stop acting like you did what you did to _save_ me, Dean. You made that deal for _you._ Because of what _you_ needed."

The extent to which he's angering DEAN doesn't even occur to him, because there's no definitive warning, no war of emotions taking place within the confines of his skull, just a dial of rage that's suddenly been turned up to eleven.

Dean's right hand clenches tightly around his shotgun, knuckles standing out stark and white. "10-4, Sam. I get you, loud and clear." It means, _shut up, Sam_ , because Dean gets violent when he gets angry, and Sam is no exception. He's more than once worn the bruises of his brother's explosive fury.

Sam's molars grind painfully as Dean fights the urge to throw a punch. "Dean, I'm not gonna lie to you. God knows, there's really no point in trying right now, but I don't _know._ "

"I got it," Dean says again, quieter.

"Dean – " The anger in his head abates by half as quickly as if he'd snapped his fingers, and Sam is left dizzy and stumblingly off-balance as a sense of pain flashes through his head. Not _physical_ pain, but a definite knowledge of something less tangible than muscle or bone breaking inside. An agonizing feeling, a sometimes forgotten one.

_Jess._ Sam's first thought, the connection he makes, the only experience he has with a pain that runs this deeply.

This pain isn't his, and it's a pain he hasn't felt since losing Jess. Not even…not even losing _Dad_ had drawn this kind of…

Sam raises his eyes to his brother, sees the darkness in his expression, the loss. He's not saying he wouldn't have made the swap, but even his uncertainty is breaking something inside of Dean. Sam can _feel_ it.

He swallows roughly. "Dean…" _I'd do anything for you._ But if that's true, then why can't he seem to say it?

If that were true, wouldn't Dean _feel_ it?

Dean doesn't even give him a chance to try and recover. "Don't worry about it, Sam," he clips, and continues down the darkened hall in search for Bobby.

***************************************************************************

_To be continued..._


	6. Chapter 6

Bobby's lip curls as he attempts vainly to swallow the thick, hard lump on his tongue that's trying to pass itself off as food. He's not a picky eater, not by any stretch; life had never thought to allow him that luxury. But the al king chicken MRE? He wouldn't feed that to his worst enemy. Well, maybe his _worst_ enemy. _Meals Ready to Eat, my ass._ There isn't one part of that label that isn't a fallacy. He bites back a sigh, setting the rest of his "food" aside in favor of giving what he's already managed to eat a chance to settle a bit before continuing this masochistic attack on his taste buds.

Sam is similarly struggling through his dinner, wincing as he chews mechanically, as though the very thought of it pains him. But Dean, hell, he's shoveling the crap into his mouth at a speed at which taste becomes irrelevant. Kid eats now like he's still making up for all of those long ago nights he gave away his dinner to his baby brother when they were left to fend for themselves.

Bobby had met back up with Sam and Dean just outside of a small, squarish former guest room looking little more than one stiff sneeze from collapsing in on itself. With the light all but gone for the day and the temperature dropping aggressively, neither put up any kind of protest when he'd suggested heading back to the lobby, to base camp, to grab some grub and maybe a drink, and thaw out a bit around the camp heater that's likely to give out before they next see the sun.

There's a tension hanging between the two of them, as thick as the snow that's resumed falling beyond these walls, and Bobby can taste it, bitter and cold, coating his throat and setting a heavy stone of dread in his stomach. Something had happened after Dean sent him out of that hallway before. Something was said, revealed, brought to light. Because of the curse or whatever the hell have you. Something big and hurtful, like a length of rusted barb wire shredding these boys to bits from the inside out.

_His_ boys.

Sons-but-not he'd inherited from what he for a _damn_ long time believed to be the most obstinate and stubborn jackass he'd ever had the displeasure—or alternately a mild pleasure, depending on the day and mood—of meeting. It wasn't until he got to know his boys, really got to know them, that he'd started to think, maybe John wasn't the stubbornest person he'd ever met. Or, at the very least, these two certainly have days when they would give their daddy a run for his money.

He has an obligation to Sam and Dean, and to John, to take care of them. Screwed that pooch but good, didn't he? Dean with one foot in the flames and all.

His eyes drift up to the two boys – two _men_ – sitting in what has to be the loudest kind of quiet he's ever bared witness to, aware now of all manner of things, of thoughts and feelings within each other that not Bobby nor anyone has ever been made privy to. Some of which he's not sure he'd want to be.

The cold has gotten such that it's not as noticeable now, a not entirely unpleasant numbness settled in his extremities, but there's sure to be a stark reminder the very moment any of them steps away from what blissful patch of warmth the heater is providing. So they mutely linger, in no hurry to leap back into the fray. And to wash dinner down, to warm his belly and brace himself for the inevitability of the reemerging cold, Bobby takes a few swigs from his hipflask. For Dean, it's a couple of beers from the cooler, and reaching quickly for a third.

Sam, content for the moment with a bottle of water, gives a slight, almost reflexively disapproving shake of the head. As subtle a motion as the kid is capable of, but it brings his older brother drawing his hand back to knead his temple.

Dean catches Bobby eyeing him and drops his hands, shoving away his empty dinner packaging. "God, I feel like we've been here a week," he complains. He drops his chin to his shoulder and sniffs. "Smell like it, too."

The show he's putting on is not his best, but certainly not his worst, either. He's bobbing and weaving, riding the tide and nothing more. Bobby doesn't need Sam's derisive snort to know Dean's full of shit, but he gets it anyway. They both do.

Dean recoils at the sound of it, face hardening as he reaches once more for that third beer. Sam looks like he's got something to say about it, and it might break Bobby's own heart but he's about the last person to tell that boy not to have a drink or two to dull his pain. Whatever that pain may be.

Bobby narrows his eyes, draws in a mouthful of warm whiskey to match the pull Dean takes from his can. "How you doin', kid, really?"

Dean almost chokes on his drink, blinking wide eyes rimmed with dark circles of exhaustion. Because being knocked unconscious just ain't the same as sleeping. "What? Bobby, I'm fine."

Sam, equally wiped from the previous night's vigil, holds his tongue but makes another disgruntled sort of noise, and Bobby can't help but agree. "You don't look fine."

"Yeah." Dean's eyebrows bounce as he stares down at the beer in his hands. "Well, there's no accounting for taste."

Bobby might not be in any position to say much, but that doesn't mean he likes the way Dean's lookin' at that drink.

He's just like his daddy. _Just like his damn daddy._ Making all the same choices, the same sacrifices, and punishing himself in all the same ways without even realizing that's what he's doing. John giving his life and soul to save Dean was the last act of a desperate man hell-bent on righting any of a dozen wrongs.

Dean did it because he didn't know any other way. Saw no other option for himself.

_"Have you got that low an opinion of yourself? Are you that screwed in the head?"_

Harsh, but heartfelt words. _True_ words, and even truer now. Screwed in the head is exactly what Dean is now, what they both are. The last thing Bobby wants to do is patronize these boys, or even give them that impression, but something's put a hell of a whammy on them and it's up to him, with the most experience and the only clear head in the bunch, to suss this all out and put things right.

He once more moves to unscrew the cap of his flask. "Think you two idjits can humor an old man to sit here a little while longer, before draggin' my ass back into the cold?"

"Sure thing, Bobby," Sam says.

Dean nods. "Whatever you need, man."

So at least they're on the same page for the moment. Bobby hopes he can keep them there. He takes a moment to swallow another pull of whiskey, watches as Dean winces and fidgets and Sam responds by scratching absently at the back of his head.

Bobby takes his time replacing the cap. "You okay there, Sam?"

"What?" Sam catches himself in the motion and frowns, drawing his hand away from the spot deep in his hair that isn't bugging him so much as it is his brother. "Yeah, I'm fine."

A strange look crosses Dean's face as he raises his beer to his lips, pained and pensive. Thinking, that one. Always thinking.

Bobby's eyes bounce back and forth, trying to soak up every snippet of evidence he can gather. They're surprised by this, so it's unlikely either of the boys had a hand in bringing it about, regardless of Dean's earlier instincts and accusations. Maybe amusing at first, but this had stopped being funny right around the time it became obviously the mental mash-up is driving stakes of agony through their thick skulls. "So when exactly – and I mean _exactly_ – did you geniuses notice something was up?"

"I don't know," Sam starts hesitantly, picking at the hem of his frayed jeans. "'Round the time we got here, I guess."

Bobby turns his eyes to Dean, who wiggles on his frozen ass like a caught little boy. "Dean?"

"Maybe a little bit before that," he concedes.

Sam shakes his head and exhales roughly. Frustrated, annoyed, verging on angry, even. Seeing this as just another problem his brother was trying to keep from him.

Dean frowns, feeling Sam's emotions as they parade through his head like a line of stomping elephants. "Wh – not _long_ before that."

Bobby takes it all in, feeling no closer to an answer. Could still be any of a dozen things. A hex bag they haven't yet dug up, a spell that hasn't yet rung any bells. Something they drank, ate, or touched without thinking first. Before they met up with him or, hell, before he even called. Being snowed in certainly isn't helping much, and Bobby thinks a moment, prioritizing, shifting things in the line in his head. "S'it gettin' any worse?"

Dean raises his eyebrows and plasters on an unconvincing smile that has Sam turning to glare at him. "Define worse."

_I'll take that as a yes._ On a whim, Bobby risks aggravating his stiffest joints and shifts in his seated position, reaches over to pinch Sam sharply on the back of his hand.

Sam jerks away. "Ow! Bobby, wha – "

"Son of a bitch!" As expected, Dean sets about rubbing the back of his own hand. "What the hell was that?"

"Testin' a theory," Bobby says thoughtfully, not sure how to process the results of this experiment beyond the thought that, yeah, that's progressing quite nicely into a state of _worse._

"Well, that's just…awesome." Dean throws a glance at his brother, at the reddened welt on the back of his hand and the lack of a mark of any kind on his own. "You got any other genius theories yet?"

Bobby lets this tone of Dean's slide in ways Sam has never been awarded, and he can see that it's ruffling some feathers that were already pretty well ruffled. "Nothin' solid enough to go gettin' you hotheads worked up over. Not yet."

The hiss and crackle of the small camp heater fills the otherwise thick silence that has pulled up a squat alongside them.

Sam glances down at his watch and a look crosses his face. It's one that is unique to Sam, that Bobby has seen before. A sour lemon look that usually precedes the kid saying something he's said already and was shot down for, but there's just no stopping Sam Winchester, not when something has wiggled its way good and cozy into his mind.

"So, Dean, you've got a couple more hours." Sam says with a casualness that even Bobby can tell is anything but.

Dean tips his wrist reflexively and glances down at his watch. "Til what?"

Bobby takes that in and files it away. Emotions, feelings, and a bit of pain transference, but not specific thoughts. Or, not yet, anyway.

Sam sighs, head tipped back. The hot puff of breath dissipates into the cold. "Seriously, Dean?"

Bobby shifts his gaze between the two. "Til what?" he parrots.

A sudden realization lights up Dean's face before his expression darkens and then altogether slams shut. "Nothing," he all but growls, quickly and forcefully, a meaningful glare shot his brother's direction.

Jaw set, Sam deliberately and with gusto ignores the look. "His birthday."

"Sam—"

Bobby sits back, astounded, and scratches his fingers against his bearded chin. "Well, damn, Dean. I all but forgot."

"And I'm okay with that. Really." Dean forces a smile that looks more like a grimace.

Sam rolls his eyes, in a way letting Bobby know Dean's smile was just as fake as he'd thought. "I know we already talked about this, and I'm not asking to pull out the party hats or anything. I'm just saying—"

"Well, don't. Seriously." Dean's gaze slides from Sam to Bobby almost pleadingly. "It's not a big deal."

Sam sucks his bottom lip in between his teeth, something more weighing on his mind, something that's yet gone unsaid. Under normal circumstances the subject would most likely be dropped, neither of them really willing to push the issue further, unwilling to cede any ground to the other. Dean hears what he wants to and Sam says what he wants to, but there's just no being selective now.

Bobby watches as a series of emotions flies across Sam's face at a speed and range he's not entirely sure a person should be capable of. "It is a big deal, Dean," Sam says finally, in a tone so loaded Bobby can't even begin to interpret the sentiment anchoring the statement.

Movement to Sam's left pulls Bobby's attention from younger Winchester to older as Dean's face scrunches up in nothing that can be described as anything less than pain, as he lets his head drop into his hands almost like holding it up is more than he can handle at the moment.

A soft groan, one Bobby's sure Dean didn't mean to give voice to, rolls past the kid's lips. "Jesus, Sam. Would ya pick a frickin' lane already?" Dean presses his palm against his forehead. "I'm getting emotional whiplash over here."

Sam's head jerks, second-hand tension drawing and marring a face that still resembles the boy he was. He's learned to set himself aside in ways he hadn't yet exhibited as the adolescent that stomped out of the door all those years ago, and he swallows, ducking his chin and looking guilty on top of the mad. "Sorry."

Dean releases a pained snort.

Bobby raises an eyebrow as it's driven home just how much is hidden beneath the surface of the masks these boys parade around in.

Sam all but throws his hands into the air. "What? Sorry!"

Dean shakes his head, barely suppressing another wince. "Nothin.' S'just kinda funny, hearing you say it when I know you don't mean it." He squints up at his brother through watery eyes. "You, uh, you do that a lot?"

Sam seethes silently for only a moment before retorting, "Well, Dean, you'd be the expert."

"What are you talking about?" Dean pauses, narrowing his eyes at Sam then drawing his head back. A familiar, cocky smirk twists his lips. "You think I do that? I mean what I say, little brother."

Sam doesn't back down. "But not what you feel."

Dean rolls his eyes, looking away. His gaze lands on Bobby and he drops it immediately to some chipped spot in the concrete between their feet. "Oh, God. Come on, Sam." He shakes his head, raising his chin to glare at his brother. "What do you want from me? A hug? Some friggin' hand holding? Maybe we can sit down and watch some sappy Lifetime movies together while I weep on your shoulder and talk about my _feelings._ "

Sam curls his fingers into tight fists, presses them against his folded legs. He looks like a rocket preparing to take off. For a moment, Bobby toys with the idea of intervening, reminds himself just in time that as much as he might wish it is, it just isn't his place. These aren't boys, they're _men._

"Jesus _Christ_ , Dean." Sam shakes his head, face spilling over with disgust. "How about just some truth once in a while? Something real."

Dean gestures sharply between them. "What, this not real enough for you?"

Sam's cheeks puff, and he blows out another long, heated breath. "You know what I mean. God, Dean why can't you just . . ." Sam waves a hand above his head, searching for the right words like he could pluck them right from the air. "Just be _honest_ with me?"

Dean levels Sam with a glare. "You know, Sam, I. Just. Don't. Know."

The response seems a bit odd to Bobby until he sees the way Sam's face morphs from annoyed to shocked, before slamming right passed angry into _livid._

Dean's wrangled free from his brother the exact response he was hoping to.

But Bobby has to wonder, at what cost?

***********************************************************************

It's getting stronger. The spell, the curse, the… _whatever the hell._

Dean realizes he's grinding his teeth for no discernible reason and forces himself to relax, unlocking his jaw with a painful and audible _click._ His hands are flexing at his sides, tightening into fists, fingernails digging into his palms. He shakes his head roughly, trying to dislodge the anger – _Sam's anger_ – but he can't. He'd become aware of it, acknowledged it and labeled it. Fuck, he'd created it, and it's stuck his head now, much like a wad of gum on the bottom of his shoe that he can't scrape off.

_Fantastic._

And, as Bobby's little experimenting back in the lobby has shown, it's not just the mental cues of each other's emotions anymore, but physical manifestations to match. Physical sensations. _Pain._ And that's just…wonderful. Just fan-friggin-tastic. There's not only anger but confusion in his head, too, loads of it, but it's not Sam's _confusion_ that's putting Dean on edge. He can't explain any of it and the beers he'd drained earlier haven't done jack shit for dulling his senses, including this brand new and not-so-fun one.

Under the pretense of investigating a suspicious skittering that turns out to be a post-apocalyptic-sized cockroach, Dean allows his brother to walk a few paces ahead and stops in the middle of the hallway. He forces himself to takes a few slow, steadying breaths that fog in front of his face, caught in the maw of the prevailing cold leaching inside the hotel. He forces himself to compartmentalize, to sift through the deluge and pick out what's him and what's Sam. It's a task that proves nearly impossible, and sends a lightning bolt through his much-abused head that rips a groan from between his lips.

Dean sucks in a freezing breath. _Oh, this is gonna get so bad._

He shouldn't have let Bobby split up from them. Again. The older hunter had cautiously begged off again nearly half an hour ago, saying the hotel was huge and they were losing light quicker than they were covering ground, and besides that, if he had to listen to the two of them bicker and pick at each other another damn minute he really was going to knock their fool heads together. His words. Of course, any hope of natural guiding light left them hours ago, so Bobby's excuse to move on had been flimsy at best. Old man probably – _hopefully_ – just wanted to organize his thoughts in an environment that wasn't teeming with barely-restrained tension. _Lucky bastard._

Dean should have put up a fight, should have shut the hell up except to insist they stick together. Bobby would have listened. But instead, he'd scoffed and shrugged and told Bobby to do what he thought was best. He knows now, that was Sam talking. Sammy's anger and temper, infecting his own mind and leaking out through his words. And now they're alone, with no buffer between them, Sam tipping the scales into new and treacherous territory, and this is gonna get so bad.

Oh, they're just battin' a thousand on this hunt. Dad would be rolling in his grave, if they'd given him one.

Ahead of him in the corridor – another dank, dark, narrow hallway that no longer smells funky to Dean and looks exactly the same as the last ten hallways – Sam stops and turns back to face him, and Dean holds his breath, feeling Sam's heartbeat racing on top of his own. The kid's felt like a dangerous concoction of confused, angry turmoil ever since dinner, and Dean silently wills his brother to calm down, especially with the fact this may all be Dean's doing, and not to mention that shotgun he's still got in hand.

Because Bobby'd been totally fine with leaving them alone with each other, sniping and bickering and _armed._ And why wouldn't he?

_Gun's filled with rock salt. It's not gonna kill me._

Not exactly gonna tickle, either.

Dean shakes his head. _Yeah, we're battin' a fucking THOUSAND._

Sam chuffs out a humorless laugh and jiggles the gun against his leg before dropping it with an alarmingly loud clatter to the floor.

The assault of outside stimuli should be a welcome change from the raging turbulence inside Dean's head, but it's somehow all the more startling and out of the blue. He takes an unconscious step away from his brother and curses himself for it, because he can _feel_ how the motion has only served to exacerbate Sam's blossoming frustration.

"I'm not gonna shoot you, Dean." Sam squeezes his eyes shut, pressing the heel of his light-hand into his forehead, sending the beam pointed skyward and dropping half of the hallway into complete darkness.

Dean raises his own flashlight slowly, studying his brother. Sammy's complexion is difficult to discern fully, but seems pale, his face creased with frustration and exhaustion. With the very pain that is currently radiating through his own skull, and _Dean's_ the one who'd kissed concrete less than twenty-four hours ago. But he's always been able to handle these kinds of things better than Sam, has a special compartment where pain goes, and it's covered by a locked, airtight seal. Sammy always begs to know and strives to be heard; he's too open and vulnerable, and the agonized look on his face is akin to those that tended to precede one of Yellow Eyes' visions. Those always took a hell of a toll on the guy, knocked him on his ass more than once. It's no wonder he seems to be succumbing to the ill-effects of this curse a hell of a lot faster and easier than Dean is. The pain he feels isn't dissimilar from his OWN vision he had of Cold Oak, like something crammed in that doesn't belong or quite fit.

"Never said you were," Dean says uneasily, forcing a grin. He glances down at his own shotgun clutched in a white-knuckled grip, and bends to prop it against the wall, hissing as that damned cracked rib reminds him that bending isn't a currently appreciated motion. Whatever's about to happen, and _God_ if it doesn't feel like something is, there's no way it ends well with the guns in play, rock salt or not.

"You did," Sam grits, tapping his forehead. "In here. I _felt_ it." He grunts and falls to the side, drops his Maglight out of play next to the pump-action and puts a hip hard against the wall.

Dean can no longer keep his distance while Sam suffers right the hell in front of him, _because_ of him, and he steps forward, a helping hand outstretched to his brother and whatever physical issues of his own there may be pushed aside for the moment.

He's got the love and concern of a big brother and the instincts of a lifelong hunter. The love has him reaching out, and the instinct brings him ducking just in time to avoid the tree trunk of a forearm suddenly swiping the air where his face had just been.

As Sam's fist rebounds off of dusty drywall, it would appear that he has finally taken that last giant step off of the deep end. He groans and pushes both hands into either side of his aching head. "Get out of my head, Dean," he pleads, voice cracking from the strain.

_Oh, Sammy. Would if I could._ Dean presses himself flat against the wall and raises his own empty hands so his brother knows he isn't going to be making any sort of move here. He's got the skinny on the inside track, knows everything Sam is feeling, and that should help him to anticipate what the big galoot's going to do next.

Then again, Dean doesn't have much of a history of things going the way they _should._ And he doesn't think there's any way he could have guessed Sam would start swinging. Even as he's _feeling_ it, he just doesn't have it in him to _believe_ it.

But suddenly Sam's arms are darting forward and he's got him by both shoulders, and Dean feels his entire body tense but keeps still. He brings his hands up only far enough to exhibit complete capitulation. Sam is scared and confused and angry – always _so_ angry – and he can call the shots here if he wants; he's more than earned it.

"Maybe if…gah." But Sam doesn't seem to know what it is he wants, and he shakes his head roughly.

Dean does all he can to let any and all emotion leak out of his body, because Lord knows how badly he screws the pooch dealing with them on his own, and he very well may be killing his brother here. He swallows roughly, wincing as Sam's bony-ass fingers dig into the meat of his upper arms. He's not really encouraged by the persistent wash of confusion clouding his own mental processes. A confused Sam is a mighty dangerous one, because they share the same hunter's instinct to strike fast and fierce when cornered, and Dean's gotta get him talking again. Gotta get him focused. Gotta bring him back. "Maybe if what, Sam?"

"Maybe if we can get far enough part…maybe we won't… _feel_ it anymore." Every word is a struggle, and that struggle is playing out in both of their heads.

Dean winces. "We tried that, Sammy. Remember?"

Sam's head snaps up sharply, and Dean recoils, the back of his already-wounded head smacking the wall. Fireworks go off behind his eyes like the fucking Fourth of July, and Sam ducks his own head as he feels the pain for himself. Doesn't seem to be enough to clear anything else out of that melon, though.

"Remember, Sammy?" Dean tries again. He swallows hard, fighting the urge to vomit from the sharp waves of pain rolling through his skull, from the sight of the ashen tint of Sam's face, a shade he knows must only be rivaled by that of his own.

"Maybe it just wasn't far enough."

Head still pounding, still raging, Dean nods, nice and slow. No sudden movements, not when Sam's clearly jumped the turnstile and hopped aboard the crazy train.

"But maybe…" Sam jerks suddenly away like Dean's a hot stovetop burner, leaves indents in his shoulders, from the feel of it.

"Maybe what, Sam?" Dean encourages. He doesn't necessarily need the benefit of words to capture the gist of what's running through Sam's head, but he plays it cool. Plays it normal. Plays Sam just like he would any other time. _Keep him talking. Bring him back._

"Maybe physical distance…maybe that's not gonna be enough?"

"You tellin' me or askin' me?" Dean inquires, lip tugging upward into a grin even while the pit in his stomach grows bigger and blacker.

Sam pulls farther away, takes a big step back and folds shaking hands once more over his temples. "Stop, Dean," he pleads. "Just…stop being so _loud!_ "

Sam's cry is desperate and anguished, reverberating through Dean's battered skull with enough force to fuzz his vision around the edges. Little brother's not taking this well, in painfully obvious fashion, and so it's concern that floods now through Dean, well before any thought of self-preservation.

And when Sam's fist comes rocketing at his face, it's clear that maybe Dean shouldn't have been so hasty to back-burner a little self-preservation. Because as much as he hates to admit it, Sam's got three inches and thirty pounds on him, and all of them are muscle. Dean's quick but if Sam starts looking to put him down, there's no question he can make it happen.

Knuckles skim Dean's jaw, knocking his teeth together and throwing him back into a rotted wall that's having enough trouble keeping the building upright, and doesn't seem too keen on putting up with the additional burden of his falling weight at the moment. The edge of his shoulder blade takes a chunk out of the rotted plaster when he hits it, and for a moment he's stuck there in the wall, a sitting target for an enraged little brother who's looking to do little more than make him stop being so _loud_ , and by any means necessary.

"Sammy, hey, man, Sam," Dean releases in a single breath, kicking against the floor for the leverage to get himself out of the hole he'd created in the wall. He thinks about calling for Bobby, about working his cell phone free and _calling_ Bobby, but there's no telling how Sam will react to an additional player at this point. Maybe it's best to just keep Sam talking. "We'll figure this out, brother, okay? There's no need to – "

He gets himself free just in time to watch his brother send an elbow through the wall, an elbow that had clearly been intended for Dean's head.

There is no longer any way to think clearly here. Dean's own head is spiraling, a spin cycle in which raw fury and anxiety are mixing with fear and alarm. It's hard to know for sure what's his and what's Sammy's, so he does what he does best, and pushes right the hell past what he's _feeling_ to focus on what he _knows._ Which is, they are monumentally fucked, Sam isn't thinking straight, and he needs to bring his brother back to him.

Sam's distracted by the same mash of emotions Dean is struggling to get under control, grinding knuckles into his own temple with bruising force. If only a little bit of the logic would transfer along with the alarm. "I can't…Dean, I can't…"

Dean reaches out a tentative hand to his brother, gripping Sam by the sleeve at his upper arm. No threat behind the motion, only comfort.

It's not just that Sam seems to misinterpret the motion, so much as he doesn't seem to interpret the motion at all. As Dean's fingers close around the coarse fabric of his jacket sleeve, Sam's arm comes around and he belts his brother square in the temple.

Dean's spun on his heels and he sees the floor coming up, but he doesn't feel it when they meet.

************************************************************************

_To be continued..._


	7. Chapter 7

It's quiet. The rapid, dangerously frantic _thumpthumpthump_ of Sam's heart slows and calms in a wonderful respite from the otherwise inescapable thunder of rushing blood and revolving emotion and whirling thought and a decidedly frustrating inability to distinguish which is his and which is his brother's. But right now, _finally,_ silence.

Breath.

Peace.

It's mercifully, miraculously _quiet_ , and Sam calms down a bit, stops the mechanical movement of his legs pushing forward and away, falls to the side and slumps against a wall all the way to floor. He lays his head back and closes his eyes and just _breathes,_ coming back to himself enough to know that he's done something incredibly, perhaps irreparably, stupid.

But there's no time to put any kind of plan in place to fully understand what that is or how to begin to attempt to repair it, because the lull doesn't last, not nearly as long as he needs it to.

Pain, confusion, paranoia, frustration, alarm…they swirl like watercolor paints on the palette of Sam's mind until there is only a dark, murky mix in which no single emotion can be pulled out and properly dealt with. Spots dance across his field of vision as he struggles to draw a deep breath, to clear away some of the confusion.

Sam's cell phone rings as he's dragging himself back to his feet but he drops it in the moment as he's thrown without any sort of warning or ceremony back into a raging cacophony of indistinguishable HELL within his skull.

_Pain._

It's pain that comes roaring to the front of the line, of all intensities along a spectrum with which he is intimately familiar already. Nothing specific fights to take precedence, just an all-encompassing body blast of stiffness and soreness and muted flares of sharper aches flooding his nerve endings as Sam stumbles through the halls, arm shooting rigidly out at his right side in an instinctive attempt for balance. His cold fingers graze slimy, rotted plaster, and the wall falls away beneath them, seemingly disintegrating merely from his touch.

The whole place is crumbling, the walls coming down. There is only rot and death to be found, all around him. This is where he belongs, what he deserves. This is all that is waiting for him.

It feels horrible and inevitable and _true_ down to the very darkest parts of himself, but it's still not…it's not _his_ thought. Sam _knows_ that.

"Sam! Dean!"

Sam knows the voice and recognizes the concern in the distant shout, and knows he should be turning toward the promise of comfort there, should be concerned himself that there even is cause to shout, because they've been attempting stealth. There's a…there's more here than just them. There's Sam, Dean, the pain, the panic…and then there's someone else, the shouting someone else. And there's something else. Something they're hunting. Or, something they're supposed to be.

But he can't worry about that right now, because all he can focus on is finding a way to escape the roar of pain within his skull. It's the only thing that matters, just finding a way out. Away. He shakes his right arm out, his elbow feeling large and sore and disconnected from the rest of him.

Pain spikes randomly through Sam's body, ebbing and flowing but always _there._ A dull but insistent soreness in his arms and a fiery lance through the side of his head. A steady thrum in the back of his skull. Sam wants away, clear from this and free of his own body, and so he just keeps moving. Just keeps pushing forward, fingertips grazing the wall as he moves.

Water drips from the ceiling, falling all around him. It feels eerily familiar, sort of like the asylum back in Rockford, and a similar mix of anger and fear swirls in his head like water funneling down a shower drain. He can't distinguish one from the other and can't bothered to try anymore. He just wants it to be _quiet_ again.

It feels like Rockford, but this isn't Rockford, because he _hurt_ Dean there, in every way imaginable. With weapons and with words and there's really no telling which left a deeper mark. He doesn't want to hurt Dean, not again. Not ever. Not with everything his brother has done for him.

Sam comes to an abrupt stop, thinking that he maybe already _has_ hurt him.

It comes back in pieces as he remembers; he didn't _find_ silence before, he _created_ it. Forced it from his brother.

_Oh, God._

"Sam!"

The call is closer but still some ways away in the hotel. _Not the asylum,_ Sam tells himself, _the hotel._ But this place is haunted all the same, still a danger, and that really should mean more than it does.

_Bobby._ Whatever whammy's been put on Sam and his brother, it hasn't affected Bobby. It will be quiet in Bobby's head, and Sam whirls in the direction of his voice, making his shaky way back the way he's just come.

He stumbles up a narrow staircase that materializes in his path, hips and knees and elbows knocking into walls and railings as he fights for balance of body and mind and can't seem to get a firm enough grasp on either. He turns right at the top of the stairwell, slams face-first into a solid wall and lurches back, spinning and heading in the other direction. There's a throb in the center of Sam's face and that's something that's his alone, he thinks, and he focuses his attention on the fire in his nose, the warm tickle above his upper lip.

He runs into Bobby before he sees him, literally, which doesn't bode well for a lot of things, because the man was shouting and stomping and waving around a giant-ass flashlight. Sam's chin knocks the top of Bobby's head and he bites his tongue as he send the older hunter staggering back, shotgun slipping from his grasp.

Bobby puts the flat of his hand against his forehead and frowns deeply. "The hell! Sam? I've been callin' you, boy. Dean, too. Where's – "

Bobby equals calm and peace and _quiet,_ and Sam grips him by the shoulders, silences his questioning with fingers digging painfully into the meat of the older man's arms. He squints, staring into Bobby's dark, suddenly wide eyes. There's nothing there; at least, nothing he can _feel_ for himself. He wants to draw all of that into his own mind, wants the dark and the quiet back.

Bobby suddenly brings his arms up and knocks away Sam's grip on his shoulders. His large, cool hands go to frame Sam's face, forcing him to be steady. Something about the sight of Sam has him panicking, and Sam doesn't need any sort of Vulcan mind meld to pick up on that. "Dammit," he spits, almost as though he's cursing himself. "What the…where's your brother? Sam, where's Dean?"

The mention of his brother starts all sorts of dials turning in Sam's head. He tries to think about Dean in a detached way that doesn't involve living inside the guy's head. Tries to see him without having to see him.

"I just needed it to be quiet, Bobby," Sam finds himself saying. There's blood in his mouth and running from his nose and he doesn't know if he's explaining or apologizing. Probably a little bit of both. Probably a lot more of both still to come.

Bobby's eyes twitch an acknowledgement and his calloused thumb moves, swipes the bit of blood away from under Sam's nose, the trickle that's spilled from his lips.

_Blood._

There'd been blood, before, with Dean. In the hall when Sam had…when he'd _hit_ him, and in the pool where he'd left him.

"Oh, God, Bobby." Something in Sam snaps back into place, like a stretched rubber band that had finally found its limit and Sam can make sense of some things. He had left his brother. They're in this hotel hunting a spirit. There's a ghost and he'd hit his brother, knocked him out. And then he'd left Dean in the fucking pool, freezing and hurt and alone.

"Focus, Sam." Bobby shakes him, the grip he's got on either side of Sam's head bone-snapping firm. The man's got instincts and experience that far transcend anything Sam or his brother have been through, and he's rougher in ways and at times that very rarely come to light. And he plays favorites, and Sam has an unfortunate habit of hurting Dean when Bobby's there to see it. "Where's your brother? Is he okay?"

Sam forces his chin to drop, bobs a pathetic nod that feels like a lie. He says the only thing he knows to be true. "Bobby, he's…he's afraid." His statement is lame and a little general, but he doesn't have it in him to verbalize much more, not when he's barely clinging to this window of clarity and he's white-knuckling to keep from losing it again. _He's afraid of dying, afraid of Hell, afraid of me. Afraid of where he's been and where he's going. Afraid of what he's done and what he can't control. Afraid of everything that's happened and all the things that never will._

_Afraid of leaving me alone._

"Okay, well, we can handle that. One problem at a time, kid." Bobby claps his cheek with a play at a comforting smile that looks more like a grimace. "Where is he?"

"I think…" Sam swallows. "I think I put him in the pool."

Sam knows that any one of a handful of those words could have been the one to raise Bobby's eyebrows, to bring the man to suck in a breath and pull his hands away. Probably to eliminate the temptation to strangle him.

"He's okay, I…" Sam shakes his head, looks up at the other man with that bit of brilliant, wonderful clarity. He holds it tight, grips it with everything he's got, like a child with a balloon on a windy day. "I just wanted it to be quiet."

Bobby nods, but his eyes are wide and Dean-afraid. "So you put 'im in the pool?"

Sam lifts a shoulder, doesn't quite know that he can find the words to properly describe how muddy his thoughts have been the past few hours. Despite this window of lucidity, he's still not exactly a pillar for mental health and stability. Even in this moment, he's not at all a poster child for grand decision-making.

"Did you…"

"No," Sam snaps, with enough force to send Bobby reeling back. No special mind-reading powers are necessary to discern where Bobby was headed with that line of thinking. And Sam might have smacked Dean around a little bit, but it'd take a hell of a lot more than a little curse-induced confusion to make him seriously hurt his brother. He thinks.

But he shouldn't be insulted, not really. It's not like he hasn't pushed those boundaries before.

"You seem to be back in control now," Bobby comments coolly.

It's true; while he's still sensing the full catalog of Dean's emotions as he's feeling them, it's not sending Sam tail-spinning out of control. His head is pounding, sure, and his heart, too, but he's got a handle on it, for the time being. Something about knowing the pain he's feeling is pain he'd caused. But he's not about to tell that to Bobby. "Yeah, I don't know why," Sam lies.

He should know better than to try to get one past Bobby. The man narrows his eyes at Sam. "Sure you don't." And after that veiled accusation, his priorities shift immediately. "Try his cell."

Sam scrambles to search for his phone and doesn't find it within his pockets, remembers having it in hand last when the roar picked up in his head. "I, uh…" He spins in the hall, his sudden movements bringing Bobby to take a cautious step away. And he can't fault the man for that.

Bobby withdraws his own phone, something far clunkier than Sam's sleek flip phone, but after he's pressed the necessary buttons Sam reaches out. "Let me."

Bobby hands over the cell but Sam is left shaking his head as Dean's voicemail picks up. He's awake now – or, _conscious_ now – he can tell that much, but clearly not in a position to get to his cell phone. Sam's been out of it, but instinct and training cling hard when everything else is a blur, and it makes sense that he would have restrained Dean in some way, seeing as he was hell-bent and singularly-focused on keeping him far away and quiet.

Dean's got all manner of shit in his seemingly endless supply of cargo pockets; there's no doubt in Sam's mind that he'd found something there to sufficiently restrain his brother. Zip ties, or handcuffs. But for the life of him Sam can't figure out which of the two would have left Dean more pissed off. Surely, Sam would have had a little self-preservation left to guide him as he was dragging his unconscious burden through the haunted hotel. _Oh, God._ Dean's gonna kick his ass. Sam can _feel_ it.

Bobby's dark eyes squint even further as he takes in Sam's words. "Let's go get your brother. Bet he's full of piss and vinegar by now."

Bobby waits for Sam to nod a tight confirmation before bending to collect his fallen firearm, then lets him lead the way to the Natatorium.

Sam doesn't need any kind of supernatural assist to know Bobby's got a cautious bead drawn on him the whole damn way.

*************************************************************************

"Well," Dean mutters aloud against a soundtrack of his own relentlessly chattering teeth, the dripping pipes, the creaking, shifting beams overhead and the swirling, howling winds of the raging snowstorm outside. His voice echoes and carries in the pit, the sound of it coming back to his ears deep and not a little hopeless. "Happy birthday to me."

He wriggles his nose against a persistent tickle there between his left nostril and upper lip, and the phantom throb that matches. He licks dry lips, certainly doesn't taste blood there but can feel it all the same. He huffs out a small grunt of satisfaction as he figures out the throbbing nose belongs mostly to Sam. _Serves you right, you little shit._

Suddenly, his cell phone rings, the tone muffled through the denim of his jeans and the weight of his mostly overturned body. Sam. Dean jerks against the beach chair pressing down on him, but it's a lost cause as his hands writhe uselessly against the frigid, unrelenting constraint of the cuffs. The ringtone cuts out, gives way once more to oppressive silence. But Sam's got his head back in the game, or somewhat, at least, and that's not nothing.

Dean runs quickly through the catalog once more, the feelings invading his mind and body that aren't actually _his._ The panic is concerning, the fear understandable, and the heavy remorse and guilt that wash over his mind as little brother starts to figure out everything that's transpired over the past…well, he might need to see his watch for those specifics, because he's clearly missing some time here. But it's a welcome change to be feeling a passive emotion, and much better than that pervasive anger of Sam's.

_Good,_ Dean thinks to himself, unable to corral the shiver that wracks his body. It's getting _damn_ cold. _Get ready, Sammy, because you're not HALF as sorry now as you're gonna be._

And that's when, because this cruel bitch of a world never seems to be quite satisfied with how monumentally _screwed_ Dean Winchester is, he catches a flash of a feathery ghostly bullshit in his periphery.

He groans as the ethereal figure floats closer. "Oh, you have _got_ to be kidding me." But it doesn't seem to be moving towards him in any sort of aggressive manner. More like it's studying him. And, yeah, that makes sense, because Dean figures he can't appear as much of a threat, fucking upside-down and shackled to a dilapidated beach chair.

And then Dean knows Sam is there, somewhere. He _feels_ Sam approaching before he sees him, and just in time, too.

He smirks in the direction of the spirit. _Oh, you are so screwed, buddy._ Because Sam isn't fucking around anymore, thank God. Sam is a refreshingly determined kind of pissed, the kind that lets Dean know the cavalry's here, and not so much in the way of knocking him even further the fuck out.

Even so, the shotgun blast takes him enough by surprise that he tucks his head in instinctively, knocking his forehead against cold tile, bringing forward an explosion of stars. _Okay, ow._ But what's another bump or bruise at this rate, really?

There's a faint pitter of salt pellets falling to tile and concrete, and then a moment of uncertain, heavy breathing.

"Dean?"

Dean's head snaps up at the sound of Sam's voice, and he renews his struggles against the cuffs. He feels exhaustion coming off of Sam in waves now, and some degree of hesitance thrown into the emotional cocktail, but none of it is quite benign enough to cause him to sit still and wait for his brother come to him. Metal bites into the tender flesh of his wrists as Sam's shadow falls long and ominous across the tiles of the pool.

The shadow stops its approach and raises its hands in a non-threatening manner, and Dean's eyes whip upward, squinting in an effort to decipher the look on his brother's face, because it's such a shit show in his head, he doesn't know what to trust. And that's a scary thought, because the only reason he _doesn't_ know has to be because Sam doesn't know, either.

"Hey," Sam says, voice deep and echoing through the cavernous Natatorium. "It's just me."

"Yeah, no shit," Dean snarls, despite his relief. "And just you is how I ended up down here in the first place."

Sam keeps his gun in hand as he trots around the pool to the shallow end, boots splashing in the shallow puddles that mark the floor. He makes his way down the short steps there with nothing less than the expected caution of someone who'd made this trek across slick tiles once already, and Dean is happy to note a faded smear of blood above his brother's upper lip. "Okay, I know I deserve that, and probably a lot worse – "

"And _probably_ a lot worse?"

"Dean, if you don't calm down, I'm going to tie you up even more." Sam shifts his weight, and Dean knows that whatever he says next is solely to cover his weepy guilt, which is weeping its way all through Dean's own head. "And as it is, I'm kind of embarrassed for you that you haven't gotten out already."

Dean cocks an eyebrow. "You're gonna make jokes now? Now? Sam, do you have any idea how bad I have to piss?"

"Actually, I kinda do."

He'd had a hell of a head start on Bobby, who just now thunders into the room above Dean's head and well out of his eye line, blowing like a racehorse. "Dean?"

"Present," Dean snipes, tugging on the cuffs, bringing about a harsh _jangle_ of metal on metal. "Anytime, Sam."

Sam fumbles through his pockets to locate the picks, and while he's acting like a bumbling idiot, Dean blows out an angry breath between clenched teeth. "You owe me for this, Sam. You owe me BIG."

Sam withdraws the pick and steps forward, then hesitates. "How big we talkin'?"

Dean considers a moment, then responds honestly, "I want to hit you."

"Oh, good Lord," Bobby exclaims from above them, exasperated.

Sam winces, and Dean nods as he feels his brother's acceptance fall like a curtain over his own weary body. "I see no way of stopping you."

"And I want the gray hoodie," Dean adds. The article of clothing has always been an object of contention between them. While _technically_ Sam's, the sweatshirt has still managed to remain one of Dean's favorite possessions, and if Sam doesn't play his cards right he'll take that fucker to the damn grave with him.

"Dude."

Dean raises his eyebrows and jiggles his bound hands.

"Sam," Bobby prods, in an even tone not dissimilar from one of their father's.

"Yeah, okay." Sam crouches and unlocks the cuff on Dean's right wrist first, and gravity pulls his sore arm to slide under the slick, mucky rope binding it and the back of his hand smacks dully against the tile beneath him. Ice and pain and pins and needles flood the limb like he'd fallen asleep with it under his head, an over-stimulated feeling that leaves Dean unable to move his arm for a long moment.

But by the time Sam's freeing his left hand Dean's rolling the chair with some degree of success back to its rightful position and sliding underneath the rope around his chest. Sam straightens, taking baby steps backward and Dean pops up immediately onto frozen, unsteady legs, bringing his tingling right hand around to land knuckles squarely against his brother's cheekbone. He barely registers the hit against his numb fingers, but shakes the hand out anyway, feeling an odd thrum resonate all the way up to his elbow.

Sam falls back a step, grimacing as his hands land and slip on the grimy tile siding of the pool. "You feel better?"

"No," Dean says honestly. "I still want the hoodie, AND the hot chick knife." The only thing Sam owns that Dean's ever really envied. Well, despite the hoodie.

Dad had hooked up – but _probably_ not literally – with a sexy little huntress half his age once when they were kids, when Dean was sixteen and already pushing six feet and therefore warranting a little attention. But it was chubby, awkward Sammy who stole the show, and Jen had ruffled the squirt's hair and given him a truly beautiful knife on her way out the door. Folded steel blade, full tang. Mmm, but he loves that knife. Sam's never appreciated it the way it deserves.

"Seriously, Dean?" There's a whine in Sam's voice, and the sentiment behind it echoes painfully through Dean's skull the same as whatever has his brother cupping that sore right elbow. "That was, like, forever ago."

"I know you still have it, Sam. I want it."

"Fine. The hoodie, and the knife, and you don't kick my ass." Sam winces, laying tentative fingertips against the rising, reddening welt on his cheek. "Or, any more than you already have."

"Deal."

Dean can't fault the kid for the step he quickly takes back, out of Dean's swinging range, no matter the deal they've struck. Then Sam seems to remember that he's on the owing side here, and his face softens as he moves aside but keeps his prying hands floating around in case Dean needs an assist up the stairs. _Stairs, man._

"I like that knife," Sam complains.

"You two 'bout done?"

Dean grips the cold metal railing of the stairs and puts a boot on the lowermost step. They can hover and he can bitch about it, but damn if this isn't gonna suck. He's running on fumes already, his body stiff and coordination shot. "Relax, Sam, it's not like you're not gonna get it right back." He can't help the words from tumbling out, from going to his comfort zone of misplaced humor and desperate deflection. He feels the hit coming before he actually _feels_ the hit.

Sam shoves him violently off of the step and into the slick tile lining the dry pool. Dean's shoulder blades smack against the hard surface, and the sound reverberates through the pit. The only thing keeping anywhere in the vicinity of upright is his grip on the frozen steel railing. He winces from the roaring anger that's reemerged, tearing through his own head, the sweat gathering on his palms. His pounding heart is almost as easily audible as his suddenly noisy breathing.

Sam's nostrils are flaring with all of the obvious anger that's going to work manipulating Dean's body. Hot and cold, that Sam. Like flipping a damn switch. Not to mention everything he's having to deal with from Dean, piling on. "That's not even a little bit funny, asshole," he seethes through clenched teeth.

Bobby's between them suddenly, wordlessly, with one hand around Dean's upper arm and the other firm against Sam's chest. Pushing him away or just holding him at bay, it's difficult to say which. "Dean," he says quietly. Telling him to fix it, because this is Dean's mess to fix, or maybe asking permission to put Sam down much the same as Sammy had done to him, see if it doesn't make this entire outing a bit easier. Dean's doing too much interpretation as it is to throw this tone of Bobby's into the mix.

Dean doesn't even look at the other man as he shrugs off the help and straightens from the wall, but is wary to make any sudden movements beyond that, lest he blink too long and wake tied up in some other random, decrepit part of this crumbling resort. "I know. I'm sorry."

Wide-eyed, Bobby steps away but Sam's not backing down, and Dean knows exactly what he's feeling. Hurt, betrayed, _angry_ , pretty much always. Or at least, more often than Dean had ever thought. And at a complete loss. Standing at the edge of a cliff long before this hunt tipped them sideways over it.

"Dean," Bobby tries again, firmer this time. No interpretation necessary; this is the tone that means, _boy, if you can't take care of this, I will._

Dean struggles to settle his pounding heart, which isn't going to happen, not on his own, because it isn't his to settle. He has to calm Sam down before they lose him again, and sets out to blank his own mind, to drain away any of his own feelings, so as not to complicate the fury happening inside his brother and echoing through his own body. "Sam, look at my face. Look at…" _Look at me, Sammy._ "I'm sorry. Okay?"

It's a long moment that feels like forever, that feels like all three of them won't be walking out of there, before Sam nods, and Dean knows it's for real.

"Yeah," Sam says finally. "Yeah, I know." He runs a hand down his face, blows out a long breath. "So, this sucks."

"Yeah, pretty much," Dean agrees, thankfully noting the steadier beat of his heart in his chest.

Bobby's head swivels back and forth between them. "We good here, fellas?"

"Yeah, we're good." Sam nods tightly. "Sorry, Bobby."

Bobby returns the nods. "Then for the love of all that's holy, can we get the hell out of the pool?"

"Yeah," Sam says. He lifts a shoulder. "'S too cold for a swim, anyway."

"And, you know, no water," Dean adds, thinking, _funny's good. Hang on to funny. Let this ride as long as we can._

Bobby chuckles and climbs the steps back to higher ground.

Sam steps forward to follow and Dean stops him, throws his forearm across his brother's chest. "I'm still taking the hot chick knife," he says seriously.

Sam laughs. He's uneasy and frightened of the situation, and maybe of himself, but laughing nonetheless. "Shut up, jerk."

*******************************************************************************

"Y'okay, kid?"

Dean sighs. _Dammit._

Bobby's caught him rubbing the side of his sore head before he could stop himself, the reflexive nature of the motion trumping his desire to not fidget in the presence of the other two, and driven by the discomfort of the bump forming there, the itch of scabbing coming up over a small scrape in his hair. Knuckles like knives, Sam's got. _Son of a bitch._

Dean rolls his eyes as he drops his arm, thumping it dramatically against his thigh. "Fantastic. Why wouldn't I be?"

Bobby raises his eyebrows. "Well, your fool head's basically been used as a damn volleyball the past coupla days."

"Yeah, I know. I was there."

It's because he's earmarked for Hell that Bobby doesn't call him any further on his bullshit, but the man's always-scrutinizing eyes stay focused on Dean a long moment before darting away to Sam, and, _there it is._ It was only a matter of time before Bobby started trying to use their newfound abilities – or _whatever_ the hell – against them.

It's bad enough he's gonna die, but does he have to ride off into the sunset getting these pathetic looks from everyone the whole damn way? And from people who should know better. Dean glares his own daggers at his little brother, but knows it's not very likely Sam's going to give him up now. Besides, what's he going to say, really?

He's not fantastic, Bobby. His brain feels like it's leaking out of his ears and it's because I went fuckin' insane and smacked him upside the head, then left him tied up and freezing at the bottom of the goddamn pool.

Then Dean thinks, _son of a_ bitch. Because, Sam would, the little do-gooder. He'd admit to his own faults for the sake of calling Dean out for his discomfort. _Shut your piehole, Sammy,_ Dean finds himself silently begging his brother. _Please, just this one time._

Sam ignores both of their looks, even if he can't ignore Dean's mental plea. A muscle in his jaw jumps, evidence that he's reading Dean, or at least his intent, loud and clear. "Let's just get this ghost dealt with," he says, eerily calm and reasonable, given everything they've been through and how bonkers he'd been just a few short hours before. He looks up, meets Dean's eyes. "Then the beers are on me."

"Sounds like a plan," Dean agrees quickly, eager to move the conversation away from the topic of his own well-being. He'd already made his feelings about that very clear – he hates to be the center of attention on his birthday.

"Yeah," Bobby concedes, weary and with some degree of frustration. Mostly likely equally divided between both of them. "Then we've gotta get you boys out of here."

"Agreed," Dean says, feeling the relief in stereo and catching Sam nodding out of the corner of his eye.

The map comes out once more from Bobby's pocket, the lines of the folds standing out in stark white, contrasting the deep blue of the paper. They gather around the plans, illuminated by flashlights and a camping lantern on the stone mantel, casting an oval-shaped wash of stark white light across the damp lobby floor.

Sam waves a hand around the surface of the map that hasn't been marred by Bobby's thick marker. A decently sized area, too much square footage left to cover. "There's gotta be a way we can eliminate some of these areas, Bobby." What he means to say is, we've spent more than enough time in this hellhole already. He's putting on a decent show for Bobby, but he's pale – hell, they all are, at this point – and his stress is nearly as evident in the lines of his face as it is in the pounding of Dean's own head.

Dean's wrists are ringed with red, worried skin from the cuffs but aren't bleeding. He frowns, looks up and catches Sam staring at the marks. Sighing, he tugs on the sleeves of his jacket and drops to his knees next to Bobby."Well, we've seen the son of a bitch here, here, and here." He taps out the spots on the map as he speaks, as he mentally amends, _I'VE seen the son of a bitch._

Bobby dutifully marks off the area, adding, "Bodies were found here and here."

"Pretty tight grouping," Sam comments thoughtfully, the exhale of warm breath fogging in front of his face.

Dean shivers, the pervasive cold cutting through layer after of layer of shirt and jacket, and struggles to remember the last time he felt warm. The last time he saw anything aside from the rotted, moldy walls of this hotel and the snow falling beyond those few windows that offer an unobstructed view, piling steadily, entombing them. "What's left around there that we haven't hit yet?"

Bobby squints at the map, straightens for a moment and reaches for the lantern, dragging it down closer to assist his tired eyes. "Offices, looks like." He rubs at his beard, calloused fingertips scraping over the coarse hair at his chin. "Dining hall."

Dean hops a bit on the balls of his feet, then turns back to his pensive brother, who really needs to practice not thinking so damn much or so loud. "There something about that blowin' up your skirt, Sammy? What are you thinkin' over there?"

That's a question Dean can unwittingly answer for himself. Sam's thinking he's more than ready to blow this popsicle stand and move on to the next, but admittedly more serious, problem. He's thinking he's about as cold as Dean, himself is.

"We're looking for remains," is what Sam says, impressively business-like. "And this spirit is staying pretty close to this area here." He waves a hand around a small section of the map before dropping a few light fingertips to the paper. "So I'd say it's a safe bet if there're bones here, they're somewhere around that dining room."

Dean snorts, rocking back on his heels and rubbing his hands together to generate a little warmth. "What, like the poor son of a bitch choked on his dinner and they just left him there?"

Sam turns to him, still surprisingly calm. "I'm willing to settle for where, and not worrying so much about how."

Bobby's eyes dart between the two, then he shrugs and moves to gather up the map. "S'good enough for me."

************************************************************************

Sam didn't think there could possibly be any room left in this hotel capable of striking him as even more bleak, more desolate, more insolated and hopeless than the scenes he's already seen here. He was wrong. The hole that's sunken in the middle of the expansive dining room creates a landscape that looks little more than post-apocalyptic against this silent and dark backdrop, looking like a yawning maw ready to swallow them all, broken wood framing the edges jutting like jagged teeth. He finds himself directing the beam of his flashlight into the bottom, just to assure himself there is a bottom. The stark circle of light falls on cracked concrete, exposed and broken piping and piles of warped, sodden wood rubble. More than enough reason to exercise caution as they search the room.

"Careful," Bobby warns in a low tone from a few feet away, echoing Sam's own sentiments as they gingerly traverse this veritable deathtrap of an ignored and crumbling building.

Dean shoots the older hunter a look across the dank, dripping dining room, from the other side of the gaping hole. The space is open, airy. Freezing, and each step brings about a creak underfoot that brings a stutter of panic to Sam's heartbeat. The room is trisected by square pillars three feet wide, a line of supports that seems endless in the weak beam of Sam's flashlight, though the walls have to end somewhere.

Dean, horribly but understandably pale, gestures dramatically upward in the direction of the creaking and dripping roof beams, and then down toward the enormous pit in the center of the room, where the floor has caved in, in spectacular fashion. The hole is nearly the width and length of the pool, but deeper than the deep end had been. He illuminates mildew-y, drafty corners as he swings his flashlight around with his emphatic gesticulating. "You don't think that kinda went without saying, Bobby?"

It _should_ go without saying, but while Sam and Bobby have been giving the hole a wide berth, Dean is stepping lightly but a bit too close to the edge for comfort, inspecting the tops and bases of the pillars and testing the splintered plywood for weak spots. One foot in the fire, at all times, because he doesn't know any other way to be. Dean's not nervous or shaky or scared as he does little more than dare the floor to give out on him. Sam can tell he's tired, as should be more or less expected, but steady. Comfortable. Hunting, just like he'd wanted to, and trying to get a good look at what the cave-in has given way to.

Bobby's eyebrows jump as the beam of Dean's light sweeps across his face, as he verbalizes once again what Sam is basically thinking for himself. "Well, knowing the kind of luck you two have, I figured I should say it all the same. Would think you've had enough excitement to tide you over at least a few days."

"You're damn right about that," Dean says, testing a spot in the exposed plywood under short filthy carpet fibers with the toe of his boot, no more than a foot away from the hole. He flashes Bobby a wide, toothy grin. "Besides, careful might as well be my middle – "

It's almost cruel, the way the weight of Dean's boot splinters the floorboard with an awful, loud _crack_ and drops him from sight right as he's saying it.

**************************************************************************

_To be continued..._


	8. Chapter 8

It's almost cruel, and almost exactly as expected.

There's a moment of seemingly suspended time in which Sam's mind goes to work doing its typical overly analytical appraisal of the situation even as it's unfolding right before his eyes. He know there's a chance Dean would have been able to hop back to solid ground as soon as the wood started to groan its give, but he hasn't yet had the opportunity to get that missing step back, the one that's had Sam musing over its loss for weeks now. He's been running himself ragged and, worse, Sam's _let_ him. And then piled on top of that, the jerk's been knocked unconscious _twice_ since they've been at Grossinger's. As soon as the wood first bent and second cracked under the strain of his step, Dean didn't stand a chance.

And then the scene returns to full speed, and Sam's pretty sure his heart drops through the floor right along with his brother. He immediately surges forward toward the new broken spot in the hardwood, a cloud of dust rising to briefly conceal the additional hole. The additional hole Dean's body has just created.

"Sam!" Bobby, seemingly frozen in place himself, cautions with a harsh bark, throwing a stiff arm out and stopping Sam before he makes it a single step.

Sam knows the man's right, and he jerks to a sudden stop, breathing hard and feeling frightened and worthless and –

A shock of white-hot pain shoots through him, ripping him in half, dropping a veil of red over his vision and sending him to his knees. "Ah!"

"Sam, what is it?" Bobby's timbre is uncharacteristically high-pitched, his concern and focus understandably split. But Sam is the one he can attend to more easily at the moment, and he uses swift, careful steps to cover the short distance between them, floorboards creaking ominously beneath his heavy boots as he moves. He crouches next to Sam with a strong, chilled hand squeezing his shoulder, and there's some degree of desperation to be felt in the strength behind his grip, because he can't bear the weight of them both.

Sam gasps and doubles over, left hand splayed on the floor while the fingers of his right knead the spot where the shock of pain is radiating under his ribs and through his middle. The agony is real enough, like something is tearing through him sharp and hot and cold and awful, but he finds no wound, no reason for this discomfort, and he gets it, then. He turns wide, horrified eyes to the older hunter. "It's not me, Bobby, it's Dean."

Bobby gets it then, too, and straightens quickly, pulls away from Sam and rushes to the edge of the hole without use for any of those previously cautious steps. His eyes dart back and forth for a horribly long moment before he sucks in a sharp breath that hurts Sam nearly the same as whatever's happened to his brother. "I got him," he says to Sam, then crouches, leaning warily over the opening. "Dean?"

There doesn't seem to be any answer, and Bobby's face makes all sorts of contortions Sam can't find the mental capacity to give much meaning to, but has a general idea that they can't mean anything good.

The phantom pain that had ripped through Sam disappears as suddenly as it came and he pushes off of the floor, lurching upright with a horrified pit in his stomach that is completely his own. If he's no longer feeling the pain, then Dean's no longer feeling the pain…and that's a realization that can lead to new doors that Sam's not ready to open yet. Not anywhere _near_ fucking ready yet.

Heart thudding and tripping all over itself, he moves next to Bobby and inspects the edge of the hole, already preparing himself to climb down as his eyes search the darkness below for Dean, gripping splintered board and jutted, dripping pipe, trying to determine which broken bits will hold his weight and which won't. There's a chance that they're still in a territory of Screwed that is vaguely familiar and yet traversable; Sam goes hurtling headfirst after his brother, and that might be one step too far into uncharted land. He can't see enough of his brother to put his mind at ease, but his eyes catch glimpses of legs, of dirty denim and boots, and maybe one pale, white hand still curled into a pained fist.

"Basement," Bobby says needlessly, breathily. He has a hand propped on his bent knee, and he won't meet Sam's eyes and some part of the man is shaking. Because this wasn't supposed to happen, not yet and not without warning, and they aren't _ready._

"How far you think?" Sam doesn't know what pulls the thought from him because he doesn't _want_ to hear an answer. One pipe breaks free of the floor beneath his shoes and nearly sends him pitching over the edge.

Bobby has reflexes and strength his age wouldn't suggest, and he has a fistful of Sam's jacket collar in the blink of an eye, hauling him back from the hole. "Far enough."

Sam doesn't pause, just propels himself forward as soon as Bobby releases him, and his wide eyes continue their search, because he needs to see his brother. His heart thuds wildly in his chest, galloping at a speed that won't be caught and corralled. He leans even further over the opening, putting down a hand to brace himself only to pull it away with a hiss as something stabs him in the palm and the floor protests his weight with another long _creak._

A faint scrape below draws his attention, and Sam drops his gaze, catches movement in between the obscuring curtain of shadows cast by the wide pillars lining either side of the pit, a boot kicking and bouncing senselessly against the ground. The hot poker in his side is back, and the agonizing roar picks up in his head once more as Dean starts to come around.

He tries to say something, maybe, but it's nothing either Sam or Bobby can make out from up here. Just an unintelligible sound of pain that escapes him because it's too much effort to hold it back, a confused keening, like a wounded animal.

"Dean, don't move," Sam calls down in a high-pitched, panicked blurt, before he can think to say anything else. He ignores the fire in his side as his fingers wrap around the edges of the floorboards, determining the shortest, safest route to take to get to his brother. He nods to himself, resigned to taking this risk and turns wildly to Bobby, one hand moving to grip the man's sleeve. "The plans you've got for the hotel, there's access to the basement somewhere?"

Bobby squints, nods. "Back in the lobby."

And they don't know if that door will need to be picked or broken down, if a path will need to be cleared. Any of which could take precious moments they don't have to spare. "Okay," Sam says, releasing his arm. When he moves his hand away there's a smear of blood left on Bobby's sleeve, and an ache in his palm to match. _Good._ Some bit of pain that's _his,_ to ground him, give him a frame of reference as he presses forward through all of the pain that isn't. "Go."

"Sam – "

"I've got this, Bobby." Sam's maybe never been so sure of anything in his life. "But we're gonna need a way out once I get down there. We're gonna need…" He can't possibly begin to know. Maybe everything. "Go."

Bobby doesn't need telling a third time. He's up and gone in a flash, and an oppressive silence falls over the room, like all sound has been suctioned out through a vacuum.

But isn't silent, not really, not entirely. Not in Sam's head. There's confusion and pain and something grazing the edge of hysteria, because those two things don't tend to mix well. "You still with me, Dean?" he calls down into the hole, struggling through everything Dean in his head to keep his voice steady. He steels himself, gripping a firm section of floor with one hand and a thick length of pipe in the other.

Another faint, guttural sound in reply that only exacerbates what Sam can already feel for himself. Another scuff of boot heel that only serves to bring about more pain for the both of them.

He braces himself for the descent, which will be dangerous enough but certainly better than falling. "Good. I'm coming."

Sam lets his instincts guide him through the climb down, figuring speed and agility are going to beat out smarts and overthinking this thing. He doesn't allow himself to stop against any single support for more than a breath, just keeps his body pushing forward in constant motion, and It's not until he drops the last few breathless feet to too solid ground that he realizes he was letting _Dean_ guide him down.

He collects himself, then moves the necessary steps to collapse at his brother's side, paints on a shaky, not-at-all convincing smile as his eyes begin their scan. "Hey, bro."

It wasn't a straight fall, not floor to floor, wood to concrete. It seems as though he'd tangled and bounced and rebounded, as all manner of debris is piled beneath the sprawled limbs of his brother; damp, rotted beams and whatever had been in storage down here. The years and weather have damaged everything beyond recognition, but Dean had managed, more or less, a soft landing. Or a hell of a lot softer than it could have been, in any case.

Dean blinks at him in a horribly familiar way that means he's seeing Sam without really _seeing_ him, vision blurry with trauma and hazy with pain. Sam fights through the echo that threatens to steal away his own visual clarity. He drops a comforting hand to his brother's shoulder, but only for a moment, because even in the admittedly shitty lighting, Dean's complexion is an alarmingly unnatural shade of gray. That shade that takes effect only when one hit becomes one hit too many. But Dean doesn't take that hit, not ever.

Sam moves into action, knows exactly where to look for wounds because he feels exactly where they are, and he finds the blood immediately, glistening in the muted light coming from above. His hand goes without ceremony to the spot in Dean's side, putting on pressure with a wet _squish,_ the blood warm and thick against his fingers. _Dammit, Dean. Can't ever do anything the easy way, can you?_

No, Dean doesn't do things by halves, and blood is pooling between Sam's fingers at an alarming rate. "Okay," Sam says, swallowing back a bit of nausea. "Okay. Hey. It's not that bad."

Dean snorts, coughs, and grimaces. He rolls his eyes weakly, and his entire body tenses beneath Sam's hands. "Liar."

"You're right," Sam concedes with a tight smile. He has to get a better look at the wound, has to get more effective pressure put on, get the bleeding stopped. He shifts his hands quickly, puts all of that first aid training to work and moves aside layer after layer of wet, tacky fabric without warning his brother. His right hand fishes a clean bandana from his pocket as he gets an eyeful of the nickel-sized hole in Dean's side that travels God knows how deep, and he jams the wadded fabric against the leaking wound, wishing the cavalry would show up. _Where the hell are you, Bobby?_

Dean makes a series of sounds expressing general displeasure at the pressure Sam applies, and Sam starts talking to cover the noises seeping out of his brother, just as he tries to tell himself the shake in his hands is from the cold. "Anything else givin' you hell, bro?"

"Mmm." Which Sam takes to be an encouraging 'no,' because Dean is the luckiest unlucky bastard on the planet. He might get himself skewered, but he'll do it without breaking every bone in his body like the gift with purchase. Gonna have some interesting bruises from this one, though, that's for damn sure.

Sam nods, stomach flipping at the feel of warm, damp cotton against his palms. "If you don't stop bleeding, I swear I'm gonna superglue this shut, dude," he threatens in a shaky voice, because Dean's not the only Winchester who turns to misplaced humor to distract from his fear.

Dean smiles, maybe, then winces, definitely. "Just gonna…glue your fingers together." His voice is strained, words spoken at a volume so low it's difficult to hear him clearly. Talking only to distract himself from what must be – from what _is_ – an almost overwhelming sense of pain and weakness. But talking, as always, is better than the alternative. "'Member?"

"That only happened once." Sam needs to find some answers for the questions Bobby's going to have when he makes his way to them. There's nothing protruding from Dean, but the hole is wide enough, the wound deep enough; something definitely got him good on the way down. Sam scouts the area, eyes resting on a jagged end of narrow copper piping pointing upward from the rubble pile Dean loosened in his drop, near his feet, its grimy, blood-stained tip identifying it as the culprit. Sam takes that in, gently bumps Dean's shoulder. "So, it looks like you're gonna get that tetanus shot you were worried about."

Dean mumbles a string of pale, incoherent sounds that only _might_ be words, before grimacing and saying a bit clearer, "M'hand."

"Yeah?" Sam encourages, not looking for clarity here, just aiming to keep him conscious and talking for as long as possible. "What about it?"

Dean's eyebrows pull together, and his right arm flops against Sam's leg. "S'it hurt?"

Sam frowns, removes a hand from applying constant pressure just long enough to inspect his brother's shaky but otherwise fine hands, not even a superficial wound to be found. "No, you're good."

"Hurts," Dean grunts, his arm still jumping dully against the cement like a fish out of water.

Sam spares another glance and now spots a smear of blood across the back of Dean's right hand, where he's just touched. He brings his own hand up into a slice of light and finds his fingers shiny with his brother's blood, but beneath the tacky coating there's a tear in his palm, a sliver of a splinter imbedded in the meat below his thumb. "It's not you," he says, somewhat shakily. "It's me."

"Y'okay?"

Sam tries to laugh but chokes on the intention of it. "I'm fine, Dean." _Stop worrying about me, you jerk. If you would just stop worrying about me…_ He wedges the wood splinter between his teeth and yanks it out. They hiss in tandem. "Sorry," Sam finds himself saying.

Dean doesn't respond, doesn't twitch or make a sound, and Sam finds himself rushing to place bloody fingers along the side of his brother's face. They're both cold, and have been for days, but he knows the signs of shock settling in when they're staring him blankly in the face. He's gotten the bleeding slowed, but not completely stopped and he needs to, because there's going to be a moment here soon when the scales tip. But Dean's a fighter, and a good big brother, and he's not going to leave Sam with that mess on his hands.

Not just yet, anyway.

But the thought leads Sam to realize that Dean isn't fighting him. He isn't growling _geddoff me_ or pushing Sam away or struggling to sit upright. He's just lying there, still and bleeding and…resigned. Like, if this is, really IT, that sucks out loud but it's better than claws and teeth. There's only one kind of hopeless inevitability, and dying is dying, any way you slice it.

_You son of a bitch._

So Sam fights for him, hoping Dean caught that sentiment loud and clear, and presses once more against the wound with both hands until he manages to draw a gasp from his idiot brother. Once he more or less has Dean's attention, he teases, "Stop being a wuss. You've cut yourself worse shaving." But it comes out wrong, comes out like a prayer or a plea.

Dean blinks at him a long moment, not even trying to say anything. His movements are sluggish and his color is awful, and Bobby is taking too damn long to find his way down to them. Then he says suddenly, "Ghost."

"Yeah," Sam responds automatically, distractedly, looking around for Bobby more than he is listening. He blinks hard, feeling weaker by the passing moment, but it's not him. He's fine. Fuck, but he's _fine._

"No." Dean shifts under Sam's hands as panic pushes to the forefront of his mind, as his brother is suddenly trying to shove himself upright, a venture he gives up on rather quickly. "Ghost," he repeats, eyes wide and shiny. "Sammy."

Sam whirls, finds himself face-to-face with the specter. And that's not good, because the damn ghost has been the very least of his concerns, and he hadn't even thought to bring the shotgun with him when he'd climbed down.

"Gun." But Dean had his in hand when he fell, and he's always thinking.

Sam spins, keeping all that firm pressure on his brother's bleeding side until the last possible moment he'll have to tear himself away. He spots the flash of light against metal and doesn't waste any more time. He grasps Dean's cold, limp hands one at a time and folds them over the bundle of fabric staunching the blood flow. "Y'gotta keep this pressure on, Dean. Okay?"

"Gun, Sammy," Dean grits through clenched teeth, nothing less than an order, and shivering through the effort and pain of pushing down on his own wound.

"Yeah, I got it." Sam launches himself to his feet and across the basement floor, skidding across damp cement and closing his fingers around the barrel of the sawed-off. Just in time to be sent the rest of the way across the dark space, careening face-first into a very solid wall.

The room around him goes darker still and Sam blinks the stars from his vision, but can't shake the ringing in his ears that sounds like the high keen of Dean acknowledging and _feeling_ Sam's pain. What's happening with them might not be happening because of this ghost, but Sam's reinvigorated with a fresh desire to _end_ the son of a bitch right now.

He's not going to allow Dean to suffer for him, not anymore. Not ever again.

"Sam!"

The weak cry at his back means, _get your ass moving,_ and is proof that the son of bitch is always there behind him, and Sam has never fully understood the way it feels to be so desperately responsible for another person. For another _life._ The feeling floods through him, and he knows now the burden his big brother carries. But it's not a burden, not really. It's duty, sure, a chore, but it's a weight worth carrying.

The hunter his father had always hoped to grow and nurture, that fierce fighter bursts from Sam as he locates the dropped gun once more and brings it about at just the right moment to shoot the spook's face full of rock salt.

He holds the shotgun steady, sweeping the basement, breathing heavily and ears still ringing. Behind him Dean is producing sounds of struggle that signal his own renewed struggle – bolstered a bit, Sam would like to think, by the fight in Sam himself that his brother can't ignore or refuse. Sam doesn't spare a look back at Dean, knows there isn't much to be done until this threat is neutralized, and somewhat comforts himself with the morbid fact that he'll know the very moment Dean takes a turn for the worse.

It's quiet but for the sounds of their labored breathing, and a sudden, random scratching from a darkened corner. A sound just loud enough to hear; the kind made when someone or something is trying not to be heard. Sam brings the gun around, just in time to have it wrested from his grasp and tossed far enough to be completely out of play this time, and his hands are left stinging from the unseen strike.

He gets his first good look at the spirit, forgotten and trapped here alone for unknown years and rolled up in such raw, unabashed rage that it barely appears human anymore. It's no surprise Dean hadn't been able to give them any sort of description after he'd been attacked. The outline of a human body is there, with long, slender limbs and an ethereal glow in a shade Sam's never seen before and can't quite put a name to, but no features are easily distinguishable in the face, save two spots in a place where eyes would be, dark and deep as onyx.

Sam has a tendency toward sympathy whenever they're facing an angry spirit, thinking of them as wounded, confused victims, themselves. But not now, not when there's so much at stake, and he's finding that he's not above attempting hand-to-hand with this floating wisp before him, just to keep the danger away from his brother.

He doesn't even get the chance.

The figure bursts into light before it can say so much as boo, seemingly from the damn cement below. Fire licks skyward as it engulfs the spirit, and the warmth reaches Sam's face like a tease, whipping his hair and jacket sleeves flat. An unholy screech starts from somewhere within the entity, gaining traction and speed to match the growing intensity of the fire.

The flames suddenly funnel up and out of the gaping hole over their heads to dissipate in the huge dining room. A blanket of warmth falls, but lasts too short a moment before the now-familiar and clinging bone-deep chill rushes in to take its place. A sizeable pile of ash is left, smoking and glowing like embers just shy of Sam's shoes.

As the retinal flare of the fiery column recedes from his vision, Sam catches sight of a blurry shape emerging from the shadows beyond the spot where the spirit has just burned away.

It's Bobby, his shoulders perched high and unassuming. "Found the bones."

"Bobby," Sam breathes, heart thudding. _Son of a bitch._ The man's got style, and even better timing.

Sam falls back onto his hands, wincing from the contact of his injured palm against the hard floor beneath him, of grit and chipped concrete working into an open wound. The pain clears the buzz of adrenaline from his head, reminds him that the night's not over yet. Not by a long shot.

He rolls to his side and doesn't even expend the effort pulling himself all the way to his feet, but crabwalks awkwardly across the dirty basement floor back to his brother. With the ghostly excitement of the night well and truly over, Dean has sagged back against the floor, only one hand now limply clutching the bloodied bundle of cloth Sam had so carefully packed over the hole in his side.

Bobby takes his cue silently, meets Sam at the other side of the sprawled and barely conscious Dean, hands hovering without actually touching.

"Got a path cleared back up to the lobby," he says quietly, like he's trying not to worry Dean with the details. "I'll bring back some things to stabilize 'im for the move."

Sam nods, but know there's nothing in any of their bags that can properly stabilize this. "Yeah."

Bobby rises and backs away soundlessly in the direction of the yet-unseen stairs, and Sam sneaks a peek at the oozing hole, curses the worthlessness of the soaked-through bandana.

"S'it that bad?" Dean inquires on a soft exhale, the corner of his lip curving upward.

_Dammit,_ Sam curses himself. _Happy thoughts, Sam._ "Shaving nick, remember? You'll be okay."

Dean nods, but Sam knows he doesn't believe him. He swallows, and it looks like the hardest thing he's ever had to do. His head rolls to the side, eyes seeming dark and faraway. When he speaks it's a whisper. "S'pretty cold, for..."

"Cold for what?" Sam gets it as the words are coming out of his mouth. _Cold for Hell. Not yet, you ass._ He presses down hard on the wound, sending a shock through his brother, a jolt of pain to clear the bastard's mind. "Hey," he barks, demanding Dean's attention.

Dean blinks, gags around the pain Sam has caused him, and shifts his roving gaze to his brother's stern stare. "Bitch," he growls.

"Yeah, well." Sam lifts his shoulder, rubs cheek against his jacket. Probably leaving blood somewhere. There's blood everywhere.

Bobby's back then, emerging from the shadows like a godsend. He doesn't speak, just shoves an alarming amount of stark white gauze into Sam's hand. His fingers leave dark smears as he works to secure a tight wrapping around his brother.

Dean's beyond sound or thought or feeling by the time he's tying it off, and Sam feels oddly alone, with his brother lying there staring at him with glassy eyes and nothing moving behind them. _Gimme something, man. Anything._

"Sam," Bobby says, quiet but business-like. "We gotta move 'im."

"Yeah, I know." Sam sucks in a breath, and waits for Dean to give them any inclination he's aware of what's happening, or worse, what's yet to come. He blinks, finally, and Sam figures that's enough. "Okay, bro, this part's probably gonna suck."

It would suck for the both of them, but Dean does his brother a solid and passes out the second they go to lift him from the damp, dirty ground.

***********************************************************************

Somebody's pretty damn scared, but for the life of him Dean doesn't know who it is anymore.

He's in and out, and more out than in, but he knows he's moving. Or more accurately, being moved. Painfully slow and just plain painfully, but it's not as though he has a lot of choice or control in the matter.

Big, cold hands grip him tightly in the places that hurt the least, and gently discourage every attempt of Dean's to set a boot down on firm ground and maybe help this process along a little. No point in dragging out the pain of it any longer than they need to. They're trying to be careful, trying not to jostle, and he _knows_ that, but _FUCK._

_Fuck, Sammy,_ he curses, probably silently, gritting his teeth against a flare of pain that steals his ability to do much of anything else.

If this is Hell, then the devil's running one hell of an assisted living program. Dean tries to chuckle at that, but something warm and sticky stuck along the back of his throat stops him even before the searing agony reignited in his middle sends him through the roof once more.

But for just another long blink, because Sam is still talking when Dean comes back down to himself, frantic, panicky.

" – ean, stop talking like…just stop, okay?"

He doesn't think he said anything before the curtain came down, but usually when Sam's taken the reins to this degree, Dean's not got that great a hold on a good number of things, not the least of which is what the hell he may or not be saying.

His head spins with a cacophony of uninterpretable emotions and he winces at the roar, licks dry lips and stares at hazy shadows shifting against the broken ceiling, thinking that whatever those shadows are doing, it looks like it hurts like hell.

Like Hell.

"Dean, please." Sammy's begging again, his head lowered and that hot exhale of breath against Dean's cheek the only warmth to be found in this pit. "Please stop."

Sammy doesn't beg, and that should really mean something.

They stop moving – _thank GOD_ – and it takes about a week for the two of them to get him lowered to a surface much fluffier than the last. Like a cloud. _Strong work, fellas, really._ Dean could get used to this, could burrow into the softness and warmth and spend a good deal of time here.

But the clouds aren't where he's headed.

Sam's breath hitches above his head and Dean can clearly identify the something fierce, determined and frightened that sprints across his mind. The horrible sharp, pinching pressure is back in his side, like a spear thrown right through him. Sammy pushing, pleading, using the pain as a reference point for them both.

Dean gasps, attempting to wriggle away from it but he doesn't have enough gas left in the tank. He slaps clumsily at his brother's hands. "Sammy, stop," he slurs, confused by the slow, muddy sound that vibrates through his lips.

"Sam," Bobby barks, taking his time in the order but it's sharp and clear when it comes, like the twang of a snapping guitar string.

The pressure eases but the pain stays, really has its claws dug in this time. That ache tells Dean to get cozy because it's here for the long haul.

There's something relieved and unwaveringly smug in Sam's voice and an echo through Dean's head to match as he says, "Bleeding's stopped."

*********************************************************************

_To be concluded in the next chapter_


	9. Chapter 9

The heater's likely to give out within the next few hours, and Bobby's collected and carefully stacked a few of the fallen roof beams into the form of a teepee within the mouth of the large fireplace, gotten a flame lit and roaring to add some peripheral heat to the room, so they aren't plunged into a state of complete frigid hopelessness when it goes. They've gingerly dragged a packed-full-of gauze and bundled-up Dean closer to the stone hearth, wrapped him tightly in all three sleeping bags and the stiff, musty fleece blanket pulled from the trunk of Bobby's ride, but it's not enough. Not nearly. Dean's lost too much blood, and he's still too cold.

After a few tense, vigilant hours, Bobby's taken advantage of the sunrise and the break in the weather to step outside for a moment and take full, detailed stock of their admittedly shitty situation and see if he can get a better signal on his cell phone, maybe find a contact in close enough proximity to get the cars unstuck and a path dug to the main road before Dean takes a turn they won't be able to bring him back from.

Bringing up all sorts of questions about the logistics of Dean's crossroads deal, like does he only go to Hell if the hounds take him after a full year passes as scheduled, or is it _inevitable?_ Is he doomed to be dragged down no matter the ways or means or exact timing? Sam knows he can't try to break the deal altogether without dying himself, but maybe there are some circumstances that can be altered.

He rubs his forehead, the headache building there one completely of his own making. He'd rather not think about Hell and deals anymore, simply comforts himself with the fact his brother made it through another rough night, and Sam will take that for now. One day at a time, while trying not to count them down. He shifts where he's propped against the stone face framing the floor-to-ceiling fireplace, sharp edges digging into his spine as he stretches out a sore, stiff leg to rest against his brother. Dean's been in and out, but more out than in, and he doesn't seem to be in a position to notice Sam moving now.

The morning has brought an abundance of sunlight beyond these walls, rays struggling through grimy glass to similarly brighten the interior of the freezing, drab hotel. The beams of light are a welcome sight and give the illusion of available warmth in the meager streams breaking free to pattern the concrete floor of the lobby, but even when Sam moves to the side to soak it in, he can't seem to remember what warm is supposed to feel like. He can't manage to register any sensation beyond the lingering chill of dread and fear coiling through his veins as he stares down at his sleeping brother who, as usual, is doing monumentally better than he should be, given the circumstances. Because he doesn't ever stop fighting.

The lobby door drags open with a shudder and a heavy, echoing scrape as Bobby stomps back inside, shivering and tucking his bulky cell phone into a pocket of his dirt-streaked down vest. He drags his hat from his head, runs a calloused hand through greasy hair, and his priorities align pretty well with Sam's as he asks before anything else, "How's he doin'?"

"He'll be okay," Sam responds automatically, a kneejerk reaction. Wishful thinking, and a refusal to believe anything else. Dean wouldn't allow for anything else. Sam needs his big brother to be okay, so his big brother will pull through for him.

The bleeding's stopped, at least, for now. They've each patched more than their fair share of battle wounds, but neither is qualified to throw a guess at what damage might lie beneath or beyond that. Probably something bad, something that can't be fixed with a needle and dental floss or by firelight. But Dean isn't supposed to take those sorts of hits, the kind that require more care and repair than Sam can manage himself, because Dean operates only within the scope of Sam's capabilities. That's just the way it is.

"We'll figure something out," Bobby says softly, like he can sense Sam's thoughts. Like this bullshit brain connection is contagious, but Sam knows better. Knows he's just predictable in his concerns. "And you?" the hunter urges.

Sam glances down at the hand he'd cut before in his haste to reach the fallen Dean, now wrapped in a strip of gauze Bobby had convinced him they could spare. Thinking back on the amount of blood his brother left downstairs, Sam's not so sure. "It's a scratch, Bobby," he barks with a bit more heat than intended, his pent-up anxiety seeking any means of escape. "I'm fine."

Bobby doesn't seem to mind his tone, or maybe he just spent so long working alongside the perpetually snappish John Winchester that he'd grown immune a long time ago. He crosses the room and stoops on the other side of Dean's sprawled form, extricating an arm from his layers of sleeping bags and blankets. But gently, like the jostle of it might actually be enough to wake him, and he holds the chilly wrist for a moment.

Dean, who's been seemingly out for the count but is always full of fight and surprises, makes a small reactive sound and his head rolls a bit, but he doesn't rouse more than that.

"Pulse is better," Bobby offers, raising his eyes to meet Sam's.

Sam scrubs his non-wounded hand across his forehead, wishing that if anything turns out to be contagious, it's Bobby's optimism. Because he could sure use some. "Yeah, a little." Better, maybe, but still in the basement. Still needing more than they have here.

Bobby takes care tucking Dean's arm back into the depths of his coverings and straightens stiffly, rubbing the back of his neck like there's a crick there he can't quite rid himself of. Sam knows the feeling. "S'warming up out there." Says it like anything _not freezing_ will henceforth be considered _warm._ "Got ahold of someone with a truck, not too far away," he continues when Sam doesn't acknowledge his unsolicited weather report. "Gonna get a plow on the front and come dig us out."

"How far is not too far away?"

"Couple hours."

Sam nods, doesn't raise his eyes from Dean's pale face. "That's good."

"Storm's shut down most of the town, but the hospital is still an option."

Sam stays silent, weighing their options. Weighing risk over reward, and want over need. They've already been living the past few months under the assumption that Hendrickson will find them. That's not risk, that's certainty. That's _inevitability._ If they're waylaid by an extended hospital stay, well, shit, they might as well roll out the red carpet for the agent and his band of merry, heavily armed men.

"Sam?"

"Yeah."

Bobby pauses, with too many questions on the tip of his tongue to know which to put forth. "You okay?"

Sam barks harshly, not really a laugh. He can't begin to fathom an appropriate answer to that question. He stalls, shaking his head and rubbing at his rough chin, fingers dragging across the stubble of three days' beard growth. _God,_ but he wants a shower, maybe more than ever before. It's a bit ridiculous, and even more so unhygienic, how often this life lands them in a spot without working plumbing or electricity. Dean, despite his hair being meticulously mussed, is always sporting a bit of can't-be-bothered stubble, and currently looks shadowy and halfway to lumberjack status. They got it from their father, who went through his fair share of unkempt phases, and could seemingly sprout a full beard at the drop of a hat.

"Sam?" Softly, a gentle prod, but a prod nonetheless, drawing him out of his purposefully distracting musings.

"Yeah." Sam stretches his back against the stone wall, waiting for another satisfying and much-needed series of _pops_ and _cracks_ along the length of his spine before forging ahead. "Honestly? I dunno, Bobby. I don't even know what's… _me,_ anymore, you know? I'm not even sure it really matters anymore."

The past few hours, with Dean so still and sleeping and not _present,_ it should be a relief, a welcome respite from the otherwise cacophonous torture of emotions rolling over each other. But instead, it's been unsettlingly quiet in Sam's head. He can hear himself think, and it hasn't been a procession of pleasant feelings. He'll have to get used to it, he supposes, in a thought that is morbidly detached, analytical and most certainly unwelcome. This scraped-raw, hollowed-out feeling that is the absence of his boisterous big brother. This right here, this is what life will be like. What life will feel like. He could have done well without feeling it so soon.

"I mean, what was the point of this?" Sam continues, anger picking up speed in the absence of anything else to ground him. He gestures to his head with his bandaged hand. "Whoever – or whatever – did this…what was the point?"

Bobby's eyes narrow. "Wish I had that answer for you, Sam."

"Yeah."

Bobby shifts his weight uneasily, no more comfortable without the answers than Sam is. "I'm gonna see what I can do about cleaning up downstairs before the cavalry gets here."

It takes Sam a moment. "Right." The blood left down there. From both of them, he remembers, staring down at the strip of gauze wrapped tightly around his own hand. When he raises his eyes again, Bobby has gone.

Sam resumes staring at his hands, at what he hadn't been able to clean with wipes from the kit. Faintly stained in the swirls on the pads of his fingers, caked in his nail beds. Dean's blood on his hands. A visual reminder of what he'd already known to be true.

Dean groans, seems to have finally found his way back to the coming side of his pattern of coming and going. Sam watches as his big brother's eyes rolls beneath his lids, as he darts his tongue out to slide against his cracked bottom lip.

Sam senses it as Dean's wakefulness fully grabs hold: a phantom hot poker in his own right side and a curtain of unease and confusion dropping over his thoughts to match what his brother must be experiencing. He takes first a few steadying deep breaths, and second, advantage of this brief but welcome pocket of awareness. He scoots closer, until his tented leg is resting carefully against Dean's side. "Hey, Dean?"

"Yeah?" Dean's response is immediate but his voice is a weak, weary rasp.

Sam skips the usual, the boring, the inquiries that, however necessary, are sure to be shoved aside or met with outright fallacies. There's no use asking the man if he's _okay._ "That motor oil in the trunk?"

Dean's eyes don't open, but his lip twitches upward. "The bottle?"

"Yeah, jerk," Sam returns with a smile. "The bottle."

"What about it?"

Sam rubs his hands together, mindful of his sore palm. "That the one I gave you for Christmas?"

"Yeah." There's not much volume to Dean's voice, Sam's only hint that the window is closing.

"Why'd you keep it?"

Dean's throat works, and he finally drags his eyes open to regard his little brother. "What's with the twenty questions, dude?"

"Nothin.' Just wondering. You keep that protein bar, too?"

"Why, you hungry?"

Because if he was, Dean would hand it over. If Sam needed anything, Dean would do anything.

What the hell is Sam supposed to do without him?

"Be all right, Sammy," Dean says, on the verge of going again. His eyes close once more, as though they weigh a ton. "You'll be all right."

************************************************************************

Turns out getting the cars unburied from a two-day dump of snow and sweet-talkin' their lazy, frozen engines into turning over, that's the easy part. Gettin' Dean in the back of that boat of a car, now that's a real treat.

That stubborn kid certainly didn't grow into a man that knows how to just let _go_ and he insists on helping the whole way there, dragged along the narrow path Tucker and his plow have carved through knee-deep powder and propped between the two of them. But the short set of stairs out front is nearly his undoing, and every time his right boot touches down he folds near in half from the hurt of it, once or twice just about taking Bobby to the ground.

Bobby lets his old bones take the blame for the overall instability of their weary and hobbling threesome, but as he grips the cold, seemingly fragile wrist dangling over his shoulder, he knows the problem goes quite a bit deeper than that. And every time Dean bites back a groan, Bobby catches Sam doing more or less the same. In fact, he can't be positive whose face is drawn in more pain. Strange things, because Dean's the only one truly wounded here, but Sam feels it all the same, like the pain is his own.

_Gotta put these boys right._ Bobby can't stand this utterly useless feeling, of not having an answer or a fix for them. But Sam's not making quite as much with the crazy as he was before and there are more pressing matters to attend to, like getting Dean somewhere they'll be able to suss out the full extent of what damage might lie beneath that hole in his side.

_Strange things,_ Bobby laments again, shaking his head as they trudge through the snow with Tucker watching from behind the wheel of his jet-black F350, _when somethin' like this gets shoved to the backburner._ He's been racking his brain for hours, for _days,_ sifting through the dusty scraps of antiquated knowledge that's not yet proven useful but is still there, and he keeps coming away empty-handed. Or, empty-minded, as it were. Can't think of anything he's encountered before, or studied up on, or stumbled across that would do something like this. Still, he also can't seem to push away the feeling there's something just off to the edge. Something he can't quite put his finger on, but shouldn't have forgotten to think about.

Sam seems to have gotten a handle on the mental stuff, but he's still making all manner of stifled, pained noises as they lower Dean onto the edge of the leather bench. Dean himself takes every bit of it silently, like it eases his mind to act like his little brother doesn't know exactly how bad he's hurting.

_Blinders on,_ Bobby tsks as they step back in tandem to give the guy a moment to catch his breath before manipulating his limbs the rest of the way into the car. _The both of them._

Tuck's known for two things: his unnecessarily massive pickup and an uncanny ability for stating the obvious. He cranks down the window of his truck and jerks his chin at Dean huffing and puffing like that walk out of the building was the hardest thing he's ever had to do. "He's not lookin' so good," he comments drily, raising his voice to carry over the animal roar of his monstrosity's engine.

"No shit," Bobby returns with a glare, as he and Sam move to help Dean tuck his long legs into the back of the Impala.

He brushes them away, complexion pale enough to rival the snowdrifts caught along the brick face of the building at their rear. "I got it."

"Sure you do," Sam scoffs.

Dean pauses on the seat, braces himself on unsteady arms and peers up at his little brother with thoughtful, unsettled scrutiny. "You okay, Sammy?" The tail end of his inquiry is lost in a fit of shivering shoulders and chatter teeth.

"Better than you." Sam averts his eyes, drags the Impala's keys from his coat pocket and skids around to the trunk, wrestles the frozen, stubborn lid open and digs around unseen for a moment. When he pops back into view he's got a wad of dark material bundled against his chest, and pitches the hooded sweatshirt through the open door as he comes back around the ass of the car. "Here. Don't say I never paid up."

Dean raises an eyebrow. "What about the knife?"

"You don't need the knife in the car. Now shut up and get comfy." Sam waits until Dean has scooted himself across the length of the seat and then chucks the door closed and straightens, impatiently brushing bangs from a face that's fallen into an expression that doesn't quite belong to him. Hard. Older and worn, like he's seen too many things to come back from. He turns from Bobby, locks that strange gaze on Tucker. "You know if there's any kind of clinic we'll pass on our way out of town?"

Tucker nods. "Mighta passed somethin' like that."

Sam nods. "Great."

Bobby grabs him by the upper arm and whirls the kid back around. "We should be takin' him to a hospital."

Sam's jaw is set, looking stubborn to the point that it's clear the expression is for show, because he wholeheartedly agrees. How could he not? "You want to see him in a hospital again?"

"I don't want to see him DEAD, either."

"I'm not an idiot, Bobby," Sam snaps, and Bobby chocks the outburst up to exhaustion and Winchester blood. "I wouldn't suggest we skip it if…but we can't risk it."

Bobby sighs. "You're that damn worried about the feds catchin' up?"

Sam lifts a hopeless shoulder. "It's bound to happen eventually. I don't wanna go shooting flares up into the sky and help them out any."

"I don't like it."

Sam takes that in, swallows it, digests it, and lets it settle. Then he meets Bobby's eyes. "You don't have to."

A sharp whistle draws their attention. Tucker, elbow propped on the window frame, seemingly immune to the chill. Or just blasting the hell out of the truck's heater. In any case, Bobby finds himself envious. "You ladies need me to stick around for the pillow fight?"

Sam pops around looking like he might throw a punch, but Bobby just waves the loudmouth off. "Get on outta here."

"You owe me one, Singer," he calls back as he manhandles the truck into a three-point turn that's surprisingly gracefully, given the size of the thing.

And Bobby kind of wishes Tuck hadn't said that last bit. There's more than enough owed and owing going around these days.

Sam jerks out of the cloud of exhaust left in the man's wake, coughs once into his shoulder and gestures at the pair of parked cars, wordlessly requesting Bobby follow him.

At least, that's what Bobby assumes the vague sweep of the kid's arm means. Hard to know for sure, and he seems to have forgotten that not everyone can read his damn mind.

***********************************************************************

They could all use an uninterrupted stretch of real honest-to-God _sleep,_ but when they're shivering outside of the clinic, figuring out travel plans, Sam and Bobby decide it's better to drive through the rest of the day and the night. Better to make straight for Sioux Falls, where they can actually, finally clean up and _crash,_ instead of holing up in some skeezy motel for a few stolen hours somewhere in Ohio or Indiana. The storm system is already a hundred miles behind them, and Dean is stitched, drugged and dozing, stretched across the Impala's back seat.

Bobby takes the lead, and Sam downs enough coffee on the way to rival his brother's weekly caffeine intake. It's not until the last few miles that he starts to notice himself nodding off behind the wheel, and before being pent up in the Impala at an uncomfortable angle seems to start getting to Dean in a way that Sam can clearly translate. His brother hasn't slept the entire way, but a steady stream of pain meds from the clinic stop have made him loose and drifty, everything going on in his head slipping and sliding like ice cubes melting in a glass, and Sam hasn't really been able to corral anything specific until now.

It starts on the outside, with an audible groan as Dean shifts against the leather bench seat, rousing like he knows they're minutes away from home base, and Sam sucks in a breath as his own muscles seem to stiffen up and a dull ache picks up in no less than a dozen places throughout his body. He presses his wounded palm against the steering wheel, grounding himself and calibrating his senses to his own pain. "Y'all right, man?"

Dean releases a slow breath that clearly hurts, well, everything, and drags himself fully – or, mostly – upright in the back seat. "I'm awesome."

He's not awesome, not by a long shot, and not all of the reasons are from that fall he took. Some of these aches and pains were put there by Sam himself, and he doesn't have to shoot a glance over his shoulder to know his brother's rubbing sore, chaffed wrists.

Behind him, Dean drops his hands to slap the seat at his sides. "Stop it, Sam."

"Stop what?"

"Feelin' sorry. I get it."

"You gonna tell me not to think about the elephant in the room next?" Sam scoffs, busying himself with digging out the new bottle of pain pills to help take the edge off for them both. He rotates the wheel to guide the wide car through the tall fence enclosing Bobby's place.

Dean pulls himself forward, leaning on a forearm against the back of the front seat. "Why would I tell you not to…what the…"

Bobby's already jerked his own vehicle to a sudden stop at the sight of the sleek Mercedes SL parked at an angle across the gravel lot, effectively blocking them from pulling any closer to the house.

Sam squints. "Is that…"

Dean's fingers tighten around the stiff leather behind Sam's shoulders. "Bela."

Sam can feel his brother's heart thudding, can feel him _seething,_ can too-easily determine every bit of strength he's pulling from his flare of anger at the very sight of her. Dean pulls away from the seatback and fumbles for the door handle, and Sam doesn't tell him to stop, or slow down, or not shoot her. Can't seem to extricate enough of _himself_ and his stalwart caution and empathy from the overall ruckus existing between them to do so.

Dean pulls from the dregs of his nearly-tapped energy well to fling himself from the back of the car like he doesn't have a hole cutting through him and all manner of medication that should be slowing him down. A hand tucked carefully against his side as he surges forward is the only outward sign of his discomfort.

On the inside? Oh, he's _pissed._ And sore as hell, which only serves to sharpen the anger rolling through him, and by association, Sam.

All three men converge on Bela as she swings easily out of her convertible. She straightens and hangs onto the window frame of the open door, tilts her head. "Don't you boys know it's rude to keep a lady waiting?"

"Good advice," Dean snarls. "I'll keep it in mind next time I see a lady."

Bela raises her eyebrows and pulls away from the car to peek around them. "Were you all alone back there, Dean? Quite a change for you, isn't it?"

"What are you doing here, Bela?" Sam cuts in before the two of them resort to hair-pulling.

She presses the car door closed and stays in a casual lean against her palms on the side of the Mercedes. "You have something that belongs to me, and I'm here to collect it."

Dean makes a show of patting down his pockets. He grimaces as he bumps his sore, bandaged side and finishes the show with a bit less emphatic gesturing. "Nope, can't say that we do. We don't make a point of carrying around things that belong to evil skanks."

Bela pouts, cocking her head. "Dean, sweetie, don't be like that. It was only a little birthday gift."

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, _balls._ "

They turn in tandem to Bobby, who's standing off to the edge of the group, looking pretty responsible for…something. But Dean's always got his gaze trained on the mark, and his attention slides back to Bela, watching her eyes, her hands, her…

_Really, Dean?_

Dean shoots Sam a guilty look and clears his throat loudly. "What is it, Bobby?"

"The package. The one that came to my house when I was packin' up for the hunt." He turns and dips into the backseat of his car, rummaging through the items carelessly tossed inside as they were rushing to leave Grossinger's in their rearview mirror.

Dean's eyes harden, hands clenching into fists at his sides. "You sent us a cursed object?"

"Give me a little credit, Dean. The ribbon isn't cursed, it's enchanted."

Sam steps in, takes a steadying breath and attempts to inject some bit of calmness between them, before someone starts shooting off something other than their mouth. "I'm failing to see much of a difference."

"And it's not really for you," she continues, as though Sam didn't speak at all. "We'll call it a…test run. For a skeptical perspective buyer."

Bobby draws back out of his car with the small wooden case in hand. Bela reaches out as though to take the box, and Bobby steps purposefully aside, handing it over to Dean instead.

Bela sighs. She shifts to brace a slim wrist against the top of her car and rotates her body toward them, propping her elbow against the roof and her hip against the door.

Dean takes notice of her movements in a way that is making Sam increasingly uncomfortable, and he coughs, drawing his brother's attention. "Dude."

"What?"

Bela smiles and tosses her hair. "Bobby, could you be so kind as to give us a moment in private?"

"Hell, no."

"Bobby," Dean says. "It's fine. Give us a minute."

Bobby nods uneasily. "I'll be watchin'."

She presses her lips together, her eyebrows raising suggestively. "I have no doubt."

Dean waits for a grumbling Bobby to make his way across the lot all the way up to the house, but Sam isn't convinced the pause is just politeness on his brother's part because, come on. Dean's obviously and understandably hurting, but he seems to be directing a huge amount of effort into putting up some kind of wall between himself and Sam. He can tell there's something getting under Dean's skin here, but for the first time in days, he can't seem to put his finger on what exactly that might be.

When the impatient slam of the screened door against the frame echoes back out to them Dean shifts his gaze over to his little brother with an expectant look, justifying and cementing Sam's suspicions.

He plants his feet in a wide stance and folds his arms over his chest, returning Dean's look with one of his own. One that clearly telegraphs that nothing short of a biblical disaster is going to convince him to leave this spot.

Dean rolls his eyes, but doesn't press the issue. He lifts the box with an expression Sam can only label as dangerous. "Okay, Bela. What's the deal with this thing?"

"It's Celtic," Bela says, in a condescending manner. Like she's teaching them something. "And very old. Ceremonial. For…weddings." The word sends a shudder through her, as though the very idea of marriage disgusts her.

Dean catches the motion, winks at her. "Aw, sweetheart, and here I didn't think there was anything that could scare off an evil skank like yourself."

"Maybe I should've gotten you a thesaurus instead." The corner of Bela's mouth ticks upward. She seems utterly amused and completely unfazed by Dean. Both strike Sam as a bit strange, because his brother sure sounds, and _feels_ , appropriately and seriously pissed.

Dean grins tightly. "Okay. How's 'bitch'?"

Seems as though he may have actually, finally struck a nerve. Bela's face hardens just enough to be noticeable but she recovers quickly, gracefully dropping her hands into the deep pockets of her no doubt ridiculously overpriced trench coat. "In any case, I don't have to believe in the institution of marriage to be paid, and I stand to make a LOT of money from this transaction."

Dean takes a step forward. "Not if you're dead, you don't. Now, what's the deal with the damn ribbon?" The hand clutching the box trembles slightly, his strength waning in an obvious way as he continues to fight very hard to keep something outside of Sam's mental reach.

"Bela?" Sam prods, desiring this entire interaction to be done with as soon as possible.

"The enchantment is meant to strengthen the bond between two people." She raises her eyebrows, taking in their tense posture, exhaustion and all of the visible bruises. "I can see it didn't work."

"So you were just screwing with us?" Sam demands.

"What can I say? I developed a taste for it."

And Dean loses his struggle, and the wall comes tumbling down.

A flush of heat races through Sam's body and he frowns, twisting to face his brother. "Why are you…oh, God."

"What?" If there is anyone who sucks harder than Dean at feigning innocence, Sam has yet to meet them.

"Tell me you didn't."

"Didn't _what?_ " But Dean's eyes dart back to Bela, to the coy, knowing smile twisting her lips. "WHAT? No, Sam. God, a man's gotta have some standards."

Sam shakes his head, feeling disgusted and violated. "You're lying. And so, so badly, too."

Dean's shoulders drop and he winces. "You can tell that, huh?"

"Yeah, but not from the spell, or whatever. From that dumb look on your face."

"What'd I say before?" Bela butts in. "Drama queen, yeah?"

"Shut up!" they roar at her in tandem.

Sam can't seem to help himself. "When?"

"Berwick."

"Fairplay."

Dean frowns at Bela, then tilts his chin back. "Ohhhh. Yeah." He grins, then quickly wipes the look from his face. "That didn't count."

"It counted for me," she says, with disgusting, put-upon sweetness.

Sam waves a hand. "And I'm done. Forever."

"Hey," Dean says, clearly offended. "In my defense, that all happened before she sold us out to Gordon."

Bela laughs, a high-pitched snort of genuine amusement. "Oh, please. You're no white knight, Dean. If a certifiably mad hunter hell-bent on revenge cornered and had your own gun pointed at _you,_ we both know you'd have given me up just as quickly."

Sam nods toward his gaping brother, owes him one for more than one mental image he could have damn well lived without. "He'd have done it quicker."

Dean shoots him a sideways glance. "Thank you, Sam." He frowns and extends the arm holding the box, wincing as he does so. He forfeits discretion, wraps his left arm around his middle to brace a hand against his side. "Look, whatever. How do we break this bond thing and get back to normal?"

"Oh, it's quite simple, actually. You just have to share a bit of your heart with your betrothed." Bela can't seem to help herself, but has the decency to put a hand to her lips as she grins. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh."

Dean smirks, digging into his jacket pocket. "Or maybe I just do this." When he withdraws his hand his lighter is clutched between his fingers. He easily wrests the ribbon from its packaging, letting the box fall to the gravel at his feet as he ignites a flame and holds it to the end of the ornate slip of fabric. The ancient material catches quickly, a real beauty to behold.

Bela surges forward with wide, horrified eyes, and Dean steps back, drops the very end of the burning ribbon to the ground between them. In mere seconds, it's nothing more than a pile of very costly ashes.

The constant roar he's been saddled with settles in Sam's head, falling into the familiar, dull discomfort of his own swirling and consuming thoughts, with a side helping of what is sure to be a raging migraine in the days to come. He raises his eyes to meet his brother's, and is relieved to see the deep crease between Dean's eyes has receded.

"I can't believe you just did that."

Dean raises an eyebrow as he tamps out the smoking pile with the toe of his boot. "All good, Sam?"

He nods curtly. "Yep. Good."

"Fantastic. Let's get some breakfast."

"Excuse me?" Bela snips at them as they shove past and make their way to the house. "The two of you owe me forty grand."

Dean stops, spins on his heel with such ferocity he probably shouldn't be keeping his feet as well as he is. His eyes are dark as he threatens, "Sweetheart, I don't think you want me to ever give you what I _owe_ you."

She's left gaping wordlessly behind them, and Sam can't help but think that if she knows what's good for her, it will be a very long time before they hear from Bela Talbot again.

*************************************************************************

It's a few days before they're fully rested and comfortable at Bobby's, a few days before Dean's weaseled his way off of the meds that don't mix well with beer or whiskey. In the middle of a lucky, mostly mild winter afternoon they drag a couple of chairs and the green cooler out onto the large, sagging porch and watch silently as the wind rustles skinny, bare tree branches and a pair of squirrels chase each other across the muddy yard, the animals taking as much advantage of the fair-ish weather as they are.

Tucked into a rickety rocker that doesn't look sturdy enough to bear his weight, Dean's still packed to the point of immobility in blankets and Sam's hoodie, but Sam isn't mourning the loss quite as much as he'd put on. Mostly because Dean looks so damn happy to be sitting out here with his little brother and Bobby, enjoying a beer. Or, enjoying a few sips of a beer, before his still-squeamish stomach predictably protests and he sets it aside on the floorboards. He doesn't touch it again, but doesn't seem too disappointed.

The fresh air is good for him, or in any case, is better than the cramped, stuffy interior of the Impala or the stale rooms of Bobby's warm and familiar but unkempt home. Sam loves the man, really, but he can't help but think it wouldn't kill him to take a broom or dust rag to the place every now and then.

His thoughts are progressively regressing to small, petty musings, and Sam finds himself almost missing the straining and stressful presence of his big brother in his mind. It had been painful, had thrown him for one hell of a loop and downright _sucked_ on more than one occasion, but it had been a peek behind the curtain, an unobstructed view into the inner workings of an extremely complicated man who hides his inner workings quite well. Sam thought they'd be closer, coming out the other end of this thing more or less okay, but Dean is even quieter and more withdrawn than before, maybe relishing a bit in the solitude of his own head.

_He's healing, you selfish ass,_ Sam berates himself, taking a long pull from his own beer as he studies his brother. Mild concussion, bruised ribs, and that near-skewering he'd suffered in the fall. Blood loss. And worse than any of the physical injuries, _exposure._ Dean had been put on display for Sam, no two ways about it. The curse, enchantment, _whatever_ , had gone both ways, true, but Sam knows he's always been a bit more open with his thoughts and feelings. He explains and explodes. He yells, he fights. He _talks._

Dean isn't nearly as _open_ as he'd been forced to be over the past couple of days, and because of that, what he _does_ choose to say carries a lot of weight. Or, it should. So Sam had stopped his own relentless desire to explain and explode and talk talk talk, and tried a little bit of listening, to hear what Dean has been really saying.

And besides, they technically missed the boat on the whole birthday thing, anyway. To make a big to-do now would just be asking for a beat-down.

But Sam can't help but call a little bit of attention to the situation. To the day. To Dean's maybe last birthday. His thumbnail scrapes along the metallic-y edge of the paper label on his bottle. "Dean?"

"Yeah."

"This is what you wanted, right? Just us and a couple of beers?" He sees Bobby shift out of the corner of his eye, on the other side of Dean's chair. Probably thinking Sam's up to no good here, only planning on riling his brother up, and he's readying himself to jump in and intervene if necessary.

"Mm," Dean replies, taking a deep breath of air that smells of freedom and fading winter, not mothballs and mildew and blood.

Sam can't help thinking that this sound escaping his brother seems to serve no other purpose than to put him at ease. Seems somewhat noncommittal. Because Dean never quite knows what he wants and wouldn't know what to do if he ever got his hands on it.

"Good." Sam takes another drink to ignore the ever-present desire to force his brother to say more than he wants to.

"I've been thinkin,'" Dean says suddenly, voice sounding like a hanging muffler dragging across a gravel lot.

"That's never a good thing," Sam replies with a forced grin, setting the bottom of his bottle against his thigh.

Bobby stays quiet, on the periphery on this conversation, but there should he be needed. Just as always.

Dean shifts in his chair and winces. "You know, there's a silver lining in all this?"

_All this_ , he says. Dying and going to Hell. Sam remaining alone and helpless in the world without his stupid, reckless, dependable big brother leading him through it. He wants Bobby to choose this moment to jump in, to smack the jerk upside the head, call him an 'idjit' and put the beer back in his hand, so he can get back to acting like the Dean Sam needs.

Or maybe that's exactly what he's trying to do here, making light of a situation that would only tear them both apart if they approached it with the gravity it deserves. Still, Sam is wary, because Dean makes jokes about his impending death to cover everything else he now knows for sure is going on beneath the surface of his stoic, smartass brother. And that can only mean the jokes will be coming in darker and more frequently, and less funny as time winds down. "You asking me or telling me?"

Dean smirks. "Won't have to worry about those dirty thirties, huh?"

Sam shakes his head. "Shut up. Jerk." He drains what's left of his beer without looking over at his brother, and moves to snatch Dean's discarded and mostly-full bottle. He gives it up without a fight. "And really, dude? Bela?"

Dean raises his eyebrows and burrows deeper into the folds of his new sweatshirt. He doesn't respond, just tilts his head back and draws in another lungful of fresh, crisp afternoon air.

Bobby snickers and seems content, but Sam can see now how much is for show, can see the lines of tension and fear cutting through the otherwise carefree features of his mask. All in all, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of honestly being shared between the lot of them. Not when they have any choice in the matter, at least.

Sam stares at the side of his brother's head, willing Dean to look over at him, but he won't. You WILL have to worry about it, he silently vows. I swear, you will.

_And when you turn thirty, you son of a bitch, I'm getting you a friggin' piñata._

************************************************************************

_End_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, like I said in the first chapter, this was my NaNoWriMo project last November. I asked my very special Prompt Master for a list of story prompts that would inspire a 50k word story, and this is what I got to work from: Sam, Dean and Bobby on a hunt, dialogue revolving around Sam threatening to tie Dean up further if he doesn't settle down, medical shock, the infamous charcoal hoodie, a blood-covered teddy bear, Grossinger's Catskill Resort in Liberty, NY, a blizzard, NO demonic possessions, what I apparently paraphrased as "super empathy wonder twin powers" but I think was originally stated as "Sam and Dean are able to sense each others emotions through some supernatural means", Dean's birthday, a mysterious birthday present, and Dean not liking attention being called to his birthday.
> 
> I really tried to keep as much as I could within the framework of the window of time I set this story, paying attention specifically to the differences in Sam in Malleus Maleficarum.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and if you have, I'd love to know what you thought!


End file.
